Sandra Hempel

The Atlas of Disease

Mapping Deadly Epidemics and Contagion from the Plague to the Coronavirus

The book cover for The Medical Detective

A woman representing syphilis; advertising Dr Abreu's sanatorium for syphilitics in Barcelona. Colour collotype by J. Thomas after R. Casas, ca. 1900. Behind every disease is a story.
Lesions on the mummified face of King Ramses of Egypt suggest that his death in 1157 BC might have been due to smallpox.
By 2017 HIV/AIDS had killed more than 35 million people across the world.

The Atlas of Disease tells these stories, interweaving the multiple threads from the natural history of the disease to the unravelling of its mysteries and its place in world events.

A parody astrological diagram showing opposing aspects of the life of settlers in Jamaica: langorous noons and the hells of yellow fever. Coloured aquatint after A.James, 1800. But as well as a narrative of death and devastation, this beautifully illustrated book tracks the discoveries that have changed the course of history, affected human evolution, stimulated advances in medicine and also saved countless lives.

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