The Fourth Horseman

by Andrew Nikiforuk

Book Overview

The author shows how feeble mankind's attempts to subdue the "super organism" of bacterial life has been. He reviews the great levelers: malaria, leprosy, the Black Death, the plague, syphilis, small... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140256105
• ISBN13: 9780140256109
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Penguin Group (Canada)
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.7" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Should We Live With Disease?

To begin with, as there are many books out on epidemic disease, I shall indicate which diseases this one covers, so as to allow the reader to see if his favorite scourges are present. They are: Aids, influenza, leprosy, malaria, plague, smallpox, sphyillis, tuberculosis and the Irish potato fungus. Nikiforuk's book is both informative and funny. It is short and easy to read in a sitting. Each chapter gives a brief history of the disease and describes its impact on humanity and civilization. The author includes many horrific descriptions of suffering victims, sure to chill any reader. I took issue with his thesis, however, that disease is mainly an environmental problem, created by changes in human population and living habits. The argument is fine to a point, but Nikiforuk goes too far when he attacks the germ theory. For epidemic diseases are caused by germs! We advance humanity every time we conquer one of these micro organisms. Changes in lifestyle and hygiene can only take us so far. In fact, population is rising largely because we have defeated disease. He seems to yearn for an earlier age when epidemics kept civilization in its place. At one point he even blames the million killed in the Sri Lanken civil war on the eradication of malaria! Population pressure apparently. He says we should live with germs but one must wonder just how much smallpox and aids we wish to live with. As I see it, mankind must continue to fight these 'germs' in every way possible

Interesting book

This book is good enough that I have not read it in a few years and can still remember it, in detail. The author's point, that pandemics are generally a function of the actions of man combined with bad luck and worse timing opened my eyes to some things and made me want to research the subject more. That may be one of the best compliments a book can get, that it inspired more reading.

Fascinating work!

Only rarely do I come across a book that totally changes my perspective on a subject. This was one of them. Before reading "The Fourth Horseman", I considered disease to be a tragic but (hopefully) preventable peril of life. I guess it still is at a local level. But this book opened my mind to the global perspective. I now see disease as a natural mechanism to handle the stresses we place on the earth and ourselves. I was amazed to learn how, in many historical instances, the devastation of a plague has actually facilitated a better life for the survivors. More than a "prologue to 'The Coming Plague'", this book stands alone as a truly fascinating read.

Plague, pestilence and epidemics: past, present and future.

Plague, pestilence, epidemics, pandemics; death by bacteria and virus: the inevitability of it all! Thanks to the author of this all too readable overview of death by microbe I'll never look at agriculture, urbanization, immigration, or anything else again without wondering how it affects or is affected by plague et al. I'm not sure this book is for anyone who wants to live anywhere but in a sealed sterile envirnment but it was very thought-provoking and pointed me toward several other books on the subject. Well worth the reading. It certainly made me look at my resident mice differantly- EEEK, a mouse, run!

Humrous and Insightful

Nikiforuk presents an argument based on the "Superorganism" of the pathogen in the world--whether that takes the form of a virus or bacterium--and its effect on human history. Subjects covered include Malaria, Leprosy, the Black Plague, Syphilis, Smallpox, and AIDS--all treated with a sort of gallows' humor that makes the reading easy to sift through. His arguments are thought-provoking and (generally) well-researched, and the book's bibliography and background make it a good springboard into epidemiology.