鈥淕entlemen, it is the microbes who will have the last word.鈥 Those words spoken by Louis Pasteur a century and a half ago are unnervingly meaningful today as we confront the SARS-CoV-2 virus that...
Today it is COVID-19 that is sowing panic around the world but in 19th聽century England the fear was of cholera, a dreadful disease. It causes diarrhea so severe that a victim can lose as much as...
Infectious diseases have a long history. The first epidemics were probably caused by the variola virus that causes smallpox. The disease commonly spreads through skin-to-skin contact or contact...
The Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. is under pressure to fast track drugs that may be helpful in the treatment of COVID-19. Remdesivir, originally approved for Ebola, may be helpful, as...
Between 1715 and 1750 there were more deaths than births in London, with the greatest mortality among children. Many of these deaths were due to fetal alcohol syndrome as unhappy mothers-to-be...
The Royal Institution was founded in 1800 by leading British scientists under the guidance of Benjamin Thompson 鈥渇or diffusing the knowledge and facilitating the general introduction of useful...
Around 175聽BC, Israel came under the rule of the Syrian King Antiochus who wanted to obliterate the Jewish religion. Judah, leader of the聽Maccabees,聽a group of Jewish warriors, led a revolution...