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    Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagion: “Ending Epidemics is an important book, deeply and lovingly researched, written with precision and elegance, a sweeping story of centuries of human battle with infectious disease. Conniff is a brilliant historian with a jeweler’s eye for detail. I think the book is a masterpiece.” Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone and The Demon in the Freezer

    The Species Seekers:  Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth by Richard Conniff is “a swashbuckling romp” that “brilliantly evokes that just-before Darwin era” (BBC Focus) and “an enduring story bursting at the seams with intriguing, fantastical and disturbing anecdotes” (New Scientist). “This beautifully written book has the verve of an adventure story” (Wall St. Journal)

    Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time by Richard Conniff  is “Hilariously informative…This book will remind you why you always wanted to be a naturalist.” (Outside magazine) “Field naturalist Conniff’s animal adventures … are so amusing and full color that they burst right off the page …  a quick and intensely pleasurable read.” (Seed magazine) “Conniff’s poetic accounts of giraffes drifting past like sail boats, and his feeble attempts to educate Vervet monkeys on the wonders of tissue paper will leave your heart and sides aching.  An excellent read.” (BBC Focus magazine)

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ENDING EPIDEMICS: NOTES (IN DEVELOPMENT)

Posted by Richard Conniff on June 6, 2020

In my latest book, Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagion, due out in April 2023, I promised to supply more detailed endnotes on line. I’m up to chapter 11, and continuing to add. Here’s what I’ve got so far, with URLs where possible:

PREFACE: THE HEALING

p. ix

“Some crematories”: A. Feuer and W.K. Rashbaum. “‘We Ran Out of Space’: Bodies Pile Up as N.Y. Struggles to Bury Its Dead,” The New York Times, April 2, 2020. The version I quote was an early draft. Final version accessed on September 23, 2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-funeral-home-morgue-bodies.html.

p. ix-x

“Polio, for instance”:  S.W. Roush and T.V. Murphy, “Historical Comparisons of Morbidity and Mortality for Vaccine-Preventable Diseases in the United States,” JAMA 298, no. 18 (2007): 2155–2163, DOI: 10.1001/jama.298.18.2155 .  See also CDC Global Health – Polio – Our Progress. (2017, November 03). https://www.cdc.gov/polio/progress/index.htm

“Smallpox still infected“: S. Ochmann and M. Roser. “Smallpox,” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. (2018): https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox [Online Resource]

“Measles killed”: Roush and Murphy, “Historical Comparisons.”

“Worldwide life expectancy”: Max Roser, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Hannah Ritchie (2013) – “Life Expectancy”. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

“Rubella in the 1960s”: https://www.cdc.gov/rubella/about/in-the-us.

p. xi

Diphtheria “killed more than three thousand”: Roush & Murphy “Historical Comparisons.”

“Winston Churchill”:  W. Churchill, Europe Unite: Speeches, 1947 and 1948 (Boston: Cassell, 1950), 138.

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