New Books In Medicine

"Quarantine, as an invention of man, is the most primitive and universal instrument of defense against contagious disease epidemics. Almost universally maligned or ignored by historians, quarantine is like an iceberg with 90 percent of its secrets hidden from view in inaccessible archives of the government."  In Germs at Bay: Politics, Public Health, and American Quarantine (Praeger/ABC-Clio, 2021), Charles Vidich explores the surprisingly rich history of quarantine in America. It's gone through five different stages and has, at times, played a key role in the American revolutionary war, the development of immigration policy, and even spawned its own code language to prevent panic from breaking out among the public. When quarantine works well, it can save lives -- but, as Vidich argues, a number of factors have to work in sync for it to be successful, and that is rarely the case. This book is for anyone seeking to understand the challenges of controlling the spread of COVID-19, and will help readers internali