Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them

by Jennifer Wright

Overview

A witty, irreverent tour of history's worst plagues—from the Antonine Plague, to leprosy, to polio—and a celebration of the heroes who fought them

In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn’t stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon thirty-four more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-seventeenth-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome—a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure. And in turn-of-the-century New York, an Irish cook caused two lethal outbreaks of typhoid fever, a case that transformed her into the notorious Typhoid Mary.

Throughout time, humans have been terrified and fascinated by the diseases history and circumstance have dropped on them. Some of their responses to those outbreaks are almost too strange to believe in hindsight. Get Well Soon delivers the gruesome, morbid details of some of the worst plagues we’ve suffered as a species, as well as stories of the heroic figures who selflessly fought to ease the suffering of their fellow man. With her signature mix of in-depth research and storytelling, and not a little dark humor, Jennifer Wright explores history’s most gripping and deadly outbreaks, and ultimately looks at the surprising ways they’ve shaped history and humanity for almost as long as anyone can remember.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781627797467
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/07/2017
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	362,781
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Jennifer Wright is the author of It Ended Badly: Thirteen of The Worst Break-Ups In History. She has written for numerous publications, including McSweeney’s, The New York Observer, Salon, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Popular Mechanics, Maxim, The New York Post and more. She lives in New York City with her fiancé who is pretty sure she has a cold and not the bubonic plague.

Table of Contents

Only YOU can prevent plague . . .

Read This Book

Introduction 1

Elect Sane, Calm Leaders

Antonine Plague 7

Frogs Don’t Save Lives; Reading History Books Does

Bubonic Plague 27

Try Being Nice Instead of Burning People as Witches

Dancing Plague 49

Spread the Word That Vaccines Are the Best

Smallpox 67

STD Shaming Leads to STD Spreading

Syphilis 89

Never Glamorize Ill Health

Tuberculosis 108

If You Want to Demonstrate Conventional Wisdom Is Wrong, Be Ready to Prove Your Theory Thoroughly

Cholera 126

Know That One Good Person Can Make a Difference and That You Can Be That Person

Leprosy 144

If You Are Diseased, Don’t Deliberately Infect Other People

Typhoid 162

Censorship Kills

Spanish Flu 179

Keep Track of Medical Advances Because They Are Happening Faster than Ever

Encephalitis Lethargica 200

Don’t Listen to Fast-Talking Charlatans with Few Medical Credentials

Lobotomies 216

Understand That When Communities, Leaders, and Scientists Work Together, We Can Save the World

Polio 239

Learn from the Past

Epilogue 259

Notes 273

Sources 299

Acknowledgments 319

Illustration Credits 321

Editorial Reviews

12/19/2016
Wright (It Ended Badly) adopts a lighthearted approach—with mixed results—to delivering sociologically oriented descriptions of history’s greatest epidemics, including bubonic plague, smallpox, typhoid, and polio. She expresses sympathy for abused victims of syphilis, who were shunned for having the disease; praises healers such as Father Damien of Molokai, who tended to the residents of Hawaii’s leper colony; and heaps scorn upon those who have viewed the symptoms of particular illnesses, such as tuberculosis, as fashionable. Wright treats generously even misguided attempts to ease suffering, as when she describes such superstitious treatments as the “exploding frog cure” for bubonic plague. But she has harsh words for Woodrow Wilson, who suppressed news about the Spanish flu in service of America’s WWI effort, and is even harsher to those who cause active harm, such as the anti-vaccine activists sabotaging herd immunity. Wright finds that in fighting epidemics, a strong leader matters; communities must choose compassion over stigma and fight the disease instead of people. Recognizing that something devastating could be right around the corner, Wright urges readers to heed history’s lessons and to be thankful for vaccines, hygiene, and antibiotics. Agent: Nicole Tourtelot, DeFiore & Co. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"Jaunty, lively, and filled with references to contemporary cultural history, making this work a well-researched page-turner. Readers will get an intense dose of history, written in a not-hard-to-swallow style."—Library Journal

"Wright brings a reliably sane and bitingly funny voice to a topic we never realized we wanted to know so much about: historically devastating plagues! Read this. . . .so that you can soon amuse your friends with the best dinner party conversation ever." —NYLON, '50 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2017'

"Wright doesn't simply state gross-out facts or hold up solitary individuals as heroes. Instead, she highlights the issues that impacted our understanding of and response to medical nightmares. Leadership, religiosity, power structures, and science collide...Written with Wright's signature humorous tone, this is a grim but engaging look at some of humanity's most feared foes." —Bust

"Jennifer has a rare ability to make history funny, titillating, and relevant, in way I’ve not come across before. Her passion and enthusiasm jumps off the page and makes her most recent book Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them, a most compelling and important read." —Angela Ledgerwood, Lit Up

Additional Praise for Jennifer Wright and It Ended Badly

"Wright combines a deep knowledge of her subjects with an abiding love for their depravity; she chronicles their breakups with a wit as sharp as a guillotine's blade."—People

"The tone—intimate, whimsical, smart, and silly at once—continues through two millennia of stories of love lost and found... Wright dishes dirt on all of them...with the gleeful irreverence of your wittiest friend recapping a particularly juicy episode of reality television."—The Boston Globe

"Immensely entertaining... If you’ve gone through a breakup, stock up on Haagen-Daz, block your ex’s number, get drunk with your friends and buy this book."—BUST Magazine

"This is balm for the brokenhearted: we are laughing! We are learning!...Above all, It Ended Badly offers hope: for the late-night drunk texters, the doughnut smashers, and everyone else currently exhibiting bad breakup behavior."—Kirkus

"Although the 13 stories feature heartbreaking and horrific tales, Wright leaves the reader with positive and hopeful thoughts on love... The writing fits right in with the work of comedian authors Tina Fey and Chelsea Handler."—Library Journal (starred review)

“Delightful... funny, irreverent... The book teaches even as it entertains, and applies modern psychology to the behavior of its subjects, providing both amusements and consolation to people likely in need of both.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From the Publisher

12/01/2016
Wright (It Ended Badly: Thirteen of the Worst Breakups in History) writes that we have been living in "an age of improbable luck" because we have not seen an outbreak of a disease that we don't know how to fight; core countries (her term for developing countries) have not had to battle diseases such as plagues that kill thousands of people. In this volume, Wright provides a historical overview of 13 diseases, including bubonic plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, and polio, that decimated populations. Along with a description of each disease, Wright includes tales about ways that society dealt with the outbreaks and those individuals who dedicated their lives to learning about the spread of the disease and to finding a cure. These were remarkable individuals who were selfless in their pursuits: Jonas Salk and polio, Oliver Sacks and encephalitis lethargica, and Father Damien, who ministered to lepers. VERDICT The author's prose is jaunty, lively, and filled with references to contemporary cultural history, making this work a well-researched page-turner. Readers will get an intense dose of history, written in a not-hard-to-swallow style.—Patricia Ann Owens, formerly with Illinois Eastern Community Colls., Mt. Carmel

Library Journal

2016-12-19
A lightweight history of plagues from an author who is "invested in this study…because I think knowing how diseases have been combatted in the past will be helpful in the future."Wright (It Ended Badly: Thirteen of the Worst Breakups in History, 2015) injects her persona throughout the book, using asides to assert her opinions and invite reader agreement. So we learn that poor John Snow, the hero who persuaded London authorities in the 1850s to turn off the Broad Street pump and thus save the neighborhood from cholera, was a boring fellow she would never want to spend time with. On the other hand, many of her heroes or things they did were "cool," a word that should have been banished from the text along with "fun." However, Wright has done her homework. She begins with a second-century plague during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, which was probably smallpox and no doubt contributed to Rome's eventual decline. The author then moves on to cover the more well-known horrors, including bubonic plague, smallpox, syphilis, tuberculosis, polio, and leprosy. She also adds a chapter on the dancing plague of medieval times, which was unusual in that people treated the victims kindly and tried to help. The 20th century brought us Typhoid Mary and the Spanish flu of World War I. The flu was followed by the still-mysterious encephalitis lethargica (see Oliver Sacks' Awakenings). The midcentury brought the polio vaccine but also a plague by another name: lobotomy. Wright notes that there were 40,000 lobotomies in the U.S. from the 1930s through the 1970s. Many of the operations were performed by Walter Freeman, whom Wright justifiably vilifies for his tireless promotion of the surgery for all mental ills. The author saves the AIDS epidemic for an epilogue as a worst-case scenario of society's stigmatizing and blaming the victim, singling out the Reagan administration for its do-nothing approach. There's no question that Wright has covered a lot of medical territory with good information; if only she had curbed her enthusiasm to pontificate.

Kirkus Reviews

It would be all too easy to read this book about devastating diseases with a basso profundo voice of doom, but that would make the narration almost unbearable and also would go against the author’s style. Instead, narrator Gabra Zackman follows the author’s lead and takes a lighter tone. She is especially effective at capturing the author’s use of irony and occasional expressions of incredulity. This makes the narrative flow more easily and keeps listeners engaged. This is not to say the author is not serious about her subject. Her scholarship is evident, but she doesn’t want to discourage readers by taking an overly somber tone. The same is true for Zackman. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2017 - AudioFile