Influenza (Biographies of Disease) (Hardcover)

Product Description
Diseases have a history, and understanding that history helps us understand how best to treat and control disease today. Today's students are confronted with a panoply of often-frightening illnesses and afflictions - the Biographies of Disease series provides students with the information that they need to understand the origin of various maladies, how they impact contemporary society, and how doctors and researchers from around the world are fighting to devise treatments to alleviate or cure these diseases. This volume, Influenza, covers a common infectious disease that afflicts millions every year - the flu -- but one that has the potential of being at the center of a new pandemic, similar to the one that killed millions during 1918. Influenza examines all aspects of this disease, including: BLThe influenza virus and how it leads to infection in humans. BLThe definition of epidemics and pandemics, and a description of the Influenza Pandemic of 1918. BLThe clinical signs and symptoms of influenza, and how it impacts special populations, such as the elderly and HIV-infected patients BLThe treatment and prevention of the flu The volume includes a glossary of important terms and a bibliography of accessible works that discuss the disease.

About the Author
RONI K. DEVLIN M.D. is an Infectious Diseases physician at Mercy Health Partners in Muskegon, Michigan. She received her medical degree from the University of Colorado, and returned to her home state of Michigan to complete a combined residency in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. She then finished her subspecialty training in Infectious Diseases at Dartmouth. She now resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she divides her time between the practice of medicine and the world of bookselling as the owner of Literary Life Bookstore & More, Inc.