Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1212411
February 17–March 23, 2020 22 Working Nurse l WorkingNurse.com BOOK CLUB by Christine Contillo, RN, BSN, PHN A s we confront the spread of the coronavirus, I decided to investi- gate two recent nonfiction books about contagious disease, and the social and political implications of public health during an epidemic. The first is Black Death at the Golden Gate, by journalist David K. Randall. This gripping true story begins in 1899, when a bookkeeper named Yuk Hoy arrived in Honolulu from China with a fever and the black spots of bubonic plague. His Chinese doctor, Li Khai Fai, was all too familiar with the symptoms, having seen the plague kill 10 million people in China in only five years before spreading to India, Australia, Scotland and North Africa to kill 5 million more. Li had hoped that the oceans would be a barrier against further spread of the disease, but the arrival of this dying Chinese man proved those hopes were in vain. Six months after Yuk Hoy's death, a ship arrived in San Francisco with a lifeless passenger who had also shown the first signs of plague. The rest of this page- turning story is about the race to contain the disease before it spread beyond the harbor of the West's largest city to the rest of the continental United States. This crisis left politicians debating who was to blame and calling for quarantines of ethnic groups they held responsi- ble. Vital public health information was deliber- ately withheld out of fear of the possible economic impact of limiting incoming shipping and rail traffic up and down the coast. Lives were lost and many careers were ended before it was all over. Randall is an entertaining storyteller who takes dry facts and makes them come alive. Although Black Death at the Golden Gate is nonfic- tion, it reads like a good historical novel. I also found myself thinking a lot about how these events would play out in today's political climate. Tiny and Deadly In The Mosquito: A Human History of the Deadliest Predator, author Timothy C. Windegard presents an expansive view of these tiny menaces to public health. Today, mosquitoes are well-known as vectors of potentially fatal illnesses, of which malaria is only the best known. However, Windegard demonstrates that mosquito-borne epidemics have been a problem throughout human history. He begins by describing mysterious epidemics of earlier eras, like the Plague of Athens (430 BCE), which "ripped apart the cohesion and foundation not only of the Athenian military but also Athenian society." Winegard doesn't limit his history to any one era or continent. He paints a vivid portrait of the impor- tance mosquitoes have played as carriers of dis- ease in colonial America, India and South America, among others. These tiny insects have decimated whole armies and changed the shape of cultures, economies and even human biology. A particularly interesting focus is on evolutionary responses like sickle cell trait, which poses significant health risks of its own, but can confer significant immuni- ty to mosquito-transmit- ted diseases even in some- one who inherits the gene from only one parent. Winegard's knowledge of this subject is exhaus- tive, peppered with fasci- nating examples. One that I especially liked was the story of NFL football play- er Ryan Clark. Jr, who became ill while playing in Denver's Mile High Stadium and suffered a near-death experience with organ necrosis. He later learned that he had sickle cell trait, which made playing in a high-altitude stadium that much more difficult and dangerous. The development of more effective insect repellants has given humanity some defense against the mosquito menace, but malaria still kills half a million people a year. Widespread business and leisure travel provides new opportunities for dis- ease to spread and climate change is increasing the mosquito range. If another author sits down 50 or 100 years from now to write a sequel to this book, it may well conclude that mosquitoes are once again winning this ancient war. Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague by David K. Randall (W.W. Norton and Co., 2019) The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator by Timothy C. Winegard (Dutton, 2019) _________________________________________ Christine Contillo, RN, BSN, PHN, is a public health nurse with more than 40 years of experience, ranging from infants to geriatrics. She enjoys volunteering for medical missions. WN Two books on the politics of epidemics Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague By David K. Randall The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator By Timothy C. Winegard