Skip directly to site content Skip directly to page options Skip directly to A-Z link Skip directly to A-Z link Skip directly to A-Z link
Volume 19, Number 2—February 2013
Books and Media

Spillover: Animal Infection and the Next Human Pandemic

Cite This Article

David Quammen
W.W. Norton & Company, Ltd., New York, New York, USA, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-393-06680-7
Pages: 487; Price: US $28.95

Spillover is a single event during which a pathogen from 1 species moves into another species; such movement can result in an outbreak. In 9 chapters, David Quammen chronicles various spillover events by using personal anecdotes and multiple stories to recount these events for the expert and novice alike. He frames the events within an ecologic sense of the pathogen, the host, and the increasing human population. He focuses recurrently on the NBO (next big one) and how, if HIV or Ebola virus were more easily transmissible, no one would remain to read his book.

Quammen’s analogies are superb. Instead of trying to turn the reader into a scientist with dry explanations, he uses analogies that have universal relevance. For viral morphology, Ebola and Hendra virions together would resemble a “capellini in a light sauce of capers.” Mathematical modeling can be appreciated in translation, just as Dostoevsky can be appreciated in translation instead of in the original Russian. Quammen compares combining specific antibodies with their virus to splashing holy water on a witch. Regarding airborne transmission, he says that pathogens can “waft into a nearby village as easily as the pleasant, autumnal smell of smoke from a pile of leaves.” Throughout the book, the subjects of human and animal diseases are “. . . strands of one braided cord.”

The last chapter, “It Depends,” is particularly sobering. If, in an ecologic sense, an outbreak is a rapid and explosive increase in the abundance of a particular species, then maybe humans are the current outbreak in the world. We have become a dense forest; tinder is dry; and the NBO is around the corner.

Who should read this book? Anyone interested in science can enjoy it—those who make their living at the bench, teach, or study—and anyone just looking for a good read.

Top

Corrie BrownComments to Author 
Author affiliation: Author affiliation: University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA

Top

Cite This Article

DOI: 10.3201/eid1902.121694

Related Links

Top

Table of Contents – Volume 19, Number 2—February 2013

EID Search Options
presentation_01 Advanced Article Search – Search articles by author and/or keyword.
presentation_01 Articles by Country Search – Search articles by the topic country.
presentation_01 Article Type Search – Search articles by article type and issue.

Top

Comments

Please use the form below to submit correspondence to the authors or contact them at the following address:

Corrie Brown, College of Veterinary Medicine, DW Brooks Dr, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA

Send To

10000 character(s) remaining.

Top

Page created: January 23, 2013
Page updated: January 23, 2013
Page reviewed: January 23, 2013
The conclusions, findings, and opinions expressed by authors contributing to this journal do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the authors' affiliated institutions. Use of trade names is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by any of the groups named above.
file_external