Throughout time, humans have been terrified and fascinated by the diseases history and circumstance have dropped on them. And in turn-of-the-century New York, an Irish cook caused two lethal outbreaks of typhoid fever, a case that transformed her into the notorious Typhoid Mary. In late-seventeenth-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome-a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon thirty-four more villagers joined her. In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn't stop. A witty, irreverent tour of history's worst plagues-from the Antonine Plague, to leprosy, to polio-and a celebration of the heroes who fought them
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