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Chills And Thrills For The Hypochondriac

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By PHILIP MORGAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 21, 2008

A new thriller for hypochondriacs has hit the nation's bookstores. "The Little Book of Pandemics" (Collins, $14.95) is a paperback and quite portable, so you can pick up doses of misery in idle moments, such as when you're waiting at the doctor's office.

Written by British physician Peter Moore, the book offers 50 of the "most vicious plagues, pandemics and infectious diseases currently know to medical science," the jacket promises. If you savor it, you can obsess over a new disease each week for nearly a year!

The book covers a range of maladies, from the rather boring chicken pox to the frightening black plague, and something called English sweating sickness, which killed half the people who caught it. It hasn't afflicted anyone since the mid-1500s, but that's no reason not to worry.

Actually, we have plenty of microscopic fears today, though Moore contends people don't worry enough about them; they act as though we've just about conquered infectious diseases. That, he explains in an e-mail, is why he wrote the book.

"The book aims to give people a rapid guide to what's lurking out there, ready to pounce."

I was pleased to find my fear-o-meter is accurate. Of the possible pandemics looming, I most fear the bird flu. That's precisely Moore's biggest worry. Though more than 160 people have died from the virus, bird flu has yet to find a consistent pathway to people. However, more and more countries are discovering the disease in their wild bird populations.

"The more it spreads, the more it has a chance of learning new tricks," the author points out. "A full-blown human outbreak of this virus could be devastating, killing millions of people within weeks of the virus discovering how to attack humans."

The 138-page book gives each illness a brief overview, from its origins to symptoms to treatment, with a handy bar chart providing an at-a-glance look at your chances of dying.

It's filled with grim comments. Some examples:

On Mad Cow Disease: "With no treatment available, medics and family can only look on as the disease destroys the person's brain, and they die."

On SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome): "While many viruses target only a few organs, this one operates with biological 'shock and awe.'"

On Ebola: "Their eyes start to turn red as blood seeps from damaged blood vessels, red spots appear due to bleeding under the skin, they cough and vomit blood-red foam as their lungs and guts start to weaken, and inside the body the virus is causing severe organ damage, especially to the kidneys, liver and spleen."

Moore reports that readers have responded favorably to the brevity of the entries. They don't get bogged down in excessive detail.

"You could say there is all of the gore but none of the bore."

I can't wait for the movie!

Reporter Philip Morgan can be reached at (813) 259-7609 or pmorgan@tampatrib.com.

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