Summary of Laura Spinney's Pale Rider

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 The first written description of influenza was made by a doctor called Hippocrates in 412 BC. He defined an epidemic as a disease that propagates in a country. Hippocrates thought that disease was the result of an imbalance between the four humours or fluids that circulate in the human body.

#2 The Cough of Perinthus was probably not the first flu epidemic. The flu virus is transmitted from one person to another in tiny infected droplets of mucus that are flung through the air by coughs and sneezes. Snot is a fairly effective missile, but it can’t fly further than a few metres.

#3 The crowd diseases, such as measles, smallpox, tuberculosis, and influenza, were a result of the new collectives that farming supported. They burned through a farming population quickly, leaving them immune to re-infection. They could not be transmitted to humans, but they could be transmitted to other animals.

#4 The natural reservoir of influenza is generally thought to be birds, especially waterbirds. The big giveaway that a certain species plays the role of reservoir for a certain pathogen is that it doesn’t get sick from it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669387374

IRB Media

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Insights on Laura Spinney's Pale Rider

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 19

Insights from Chapter 20

Insights from Chapter 21

Insights from Chapter 22

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The first written description of influenza was made by a doctor called Hippocrates in 412 BC. He defined an epidemic as a disease that propagates in a country. Hippocrates thought that disease was the result of an imbalance between the four humours or fluids that circulate in the human body.

#2

The Cough of Perinthus was probably not the first flu epidemic. The flu virus is transmitted from one person to another in tiny infected droplets of mucus that are flung through the air by coughs and sneezes. Snot is a fairly effective missile, but it can’t fly further than a few metres.

#3

The crowd diseases, such as measles, smallpox, tuberculosis, and influenza, were a result of the new collectives that farming supported. They burned through a farming population quickly, leaving them immune to re-infection. They could not be transmitted to humans, but they could be transmitted to other animals.

#4

The natural reservoir of influenza is generally thought to be birds, especially waterbirds. The big giveaway that a certain species plays the role of reservoir for a certain pathogen is that it doesn’t get sick from it.

#5

The first flu epidemic occurred in the last 12,000 years, and probably in the last 5,000. It was likely in the city of Uruk in what is now Iraq, and it killed almost all of the inhabitants.

#6

The age of discovery was the beginning of the spread of European diseases to which local populations had no immunity. The fauna of the New World lent itself less easily to domestication