Botulism, caused by a toxin produced by the Clostridium botulinum bacterium, never accounted for more than about 35 incidents per year in the United States. Those numbers peaked in the 1930s. It is the mysterious, however, that most people fear, and Biddle's list of strange diseases named after the places they were discovered is enough to make readers turn in their passports. Junin, Lassa and Mapucho hemorrhagic fevers are caused by arenaviruses carried by bats, rats and mice. Rocky Mountain spotted fever reaches us through ticks, and mosquitoes are the agents of yellow and dengue fevers, malaria and several kinds of encephalitis.
Every book of lists inspires readers to look for what's missing.
Dental caries, gangrene, gingivitis and sleeping sickness could merit mention. Biddle might have included entries on Chaga's disease, a tropical American trypanosomal illness transmitted by a critter called an assassin bug, which may have afflicted Darwin, and kuru, a disease from New Guinea that was associated with cannibalism and is now apparently extinct. None of these omissions, however, represents a serious problem. The choices covered in this guide always seem to do two things. First, each offers Biddle the chance to say something interesting or show an intriguing picture, presenting some tidbit about a symptom, statistic, scientist or victim that makes even the most obscure organism seem somehow familiar.