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by Allen Jones (Author), Allen Jones (Illustrator)
A primer about hundreds of infections, The Hidden Zoo Inside You provides the foundations of infectious disease required to understand pandemics through the use of humor, drawings, and even doodles. The entire book is handwritten and includes diagrams and sketches that explain, in layman's terms, the origin, epidemiology, clinical features, public health concerns of various life-threatening diseases. It reveals to the reader how the microbial world coexists with the rest of the Animal Kingdom and even the Plant Kingdom. The diseases elucidated in the book include the plague, smallpox, influenza, COVID, and a host of others. The book provides contextual information and the disaster management required for each disease presented within its pages.
Described as "a graphic novel like Maus meeting Gray's Anatomy," the content of the book is broad and detailed, written in language (and drawings) that everyone can understand, and covers topics like the initiation and course of various pandemics across history, for example, the Black Death in England in the 1300s, the Plague of Athens (typhus) in 430 BC, the Ebola endemic in Africa that began in 1976 and continues to this day, the Antonine Plague (smallpox) that decimated Rome between 165 and 180 AD, and-of course-the COVID pandemic that began in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019. Other features of the book include explanations of how to choose the right mask for the job by explaining the distinction between droplets and aerosols, a guide on how to easily memorize information, an extensive index that will help the reader find specific information in the book, and a massive online bibliography that summarizes and provides more context and information about the sources of information. The book and bibliography are rich in information that will create common ground between health professionals, educators, students, parents, and politicians.
