Review

Toxic and shocking

The Coming Plague
Laurie Garrett
Virago, 1995, £20.00

For anyone interested in communicable disease and the environment, the subject matter of this book should prove stimulating. It deals with the hot topics in communicable diseases over the past few decades: haemorrhagic fevers, legionnaires disease, toxic shock syndrome, multiply-resistant organisms, HIV. The author relates the appearance of these new ‘plagues’ to modern environments and modern behaviours. For many readers these ideas will not be new, but it is interesting to see them articulated in a popular book format.

As stated on the cover, the book sounds an alarm, but not just the one intended by the author. For me the book was at times over-sensational, although it is difficult to imagine how to write a popular book on communicable disease without sensationalising somewhat. For readers used to a more straightforward account of communicable disease and the environment, the prose style may make uncomfortable reading.

The book has an understandable American slant, and not surprisingly a large part of it is about the heroic goings-on of American communicable disease experts. Sometimes the book reads like the communicable disease equivalent of ‘how the west was won’. But just like with Cowboys and Indians, the sceptical British reader may be less sure who the heroes really are.

In the final analysis, this book has an important message which is only partially drowned out by its journalistic style. It raises the popular profile of important environmental health issues. For those who can tolerate the mixture of science and a considerable amount of personal detail, this communicable disease thriller will make good reading.