Book Beginning: In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F. Cantor

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

In the sixth month of the new millennium and new century, the American Medical Association held a conference on infectious diseases. Pronouncements by scientists and heads of medical organizations at the conference were scary in tone. Infectious disease was the leading cause of death worldwide and the third leading cause in the U.S.A., it was stressed. The situation could soon become much worse.

As the world becomes more of a global village, said one expert, infectious disease could by natural transmission become more threatening in the United States. Here monitoring is lax because of a mistaken belief that the threat of infectious disease has been almost wiped out by antibiotics.

Whew. Talk about timely! I've had this book for quite a while now because as a former microbiologist I am very interested in the history of disease. The subtitle of the book is "The Black Death & The World It Made". Hence I thought it would be of historical interest. Now I'm thinking it might be more relevant to today's problems. We shall see.