Four Books Worth Reading at This Stage

How long will COVID-19 last? When will a vaccine be ready? Can a vaccine save humanity? What impact will it have on human society? Many people hope for answers to these questions. In reality, no one can give an accurate answer. Some people trust the authorities, but in practice many authorities are talking through their hats.

Right now many people are confined at home, their future uncertain, their spirits strained, and the various information they receive is uneven in quality; remarks from all kinds of media and individuals are biased to varying degrees and hard to trust. In this situation, what we need is the ability to think on the basis of professional knowledge and reason.

As Gorky said, books are the ladder of human progress. In this special period, we can read some professional books to improve our judgment and reduce our confusion. Among the books I have read recently, I think several are particularly meaningful; I recommend them to readers in the hope that they may be of some help.

Spillover: The author, Nathan Wolfe, holds a doctorate in immunology and infectious diseases from Harvard. Nathan Wolfe is currently a visiting professor of human biology at Stanford University; he is an especially adventurous virus hunter who has long devoted himself to the study of viruses and medical history.

Nathan Wolfe's research on pathogenic microorganisms is deep. Why do pathogenic microorganisms so deeply attract this scientist? Because his research tells him that pathogenic microorganisms have interfered with the course of human civilization in ways that are hard to believe, and that disease has affected every aspect of human society in ways beyond imagination.

In Spillover, Nathan Wolfe points out that we humans are merely sojourners on a planet ruled by viruses; these microorganisms are the true masters of the earth. The world's population is only about 8 billion, yet a single milliliter of seawater contains 250 million viral particles. Human history is only a few million years old, but microorganisms such as viruses and bacteria have existed on earth for 3.5 billion years.

Viruses are the most diverse form of life; it was not until more than a hundred years ago that Beijerinck first discovered them, and before that we humans knew nothing about viruses. Our exploration of viruses is still at a very superficial level; we have only discovered the tip of the iceberg of this planetary overlord.

Some viruses trigger terrifying epidemics like plague and COVID-19; others are carcinogenic — for example, HPV is the chief culprit in cervical cancer, and hepatitis B virus can cause liver cancer. Still other viruses are very beneficial to humans.

Reading Spillover, we can learn a great deal of virological common sense. The blatantly inflammatory language in today's various media looks frail beside such popular science works. The history of science may seem dry, but it helps improve our ability to think rationally.

Plagues and Peoples: The author, William McNeill, is one of the most renowned historians in the world today. He is a founder of global history studies and the "modern pioneer" of world history as a discipline. William McNeill is now emeritus professor at the University of Chicago; he has served as president of the American Historical Association and of the American World History Association. His work in global history is outstanding and respected, and he has received numerous awards in his lifetime, including the U.S. National Book Award, the Erasmus Prize, and the National Humanities Medal.

Plagues and Peoples

traces the history of human plagues from multiple angles and analyzes their profound political and cultural impact on nations around the world. Professor William McNeill points out: "Skills, knowledge, and organization change, but human vulnerability in the face of disease does not."

After reading this book, when we look again at the enormous political and economic impact of COVID-19 on countries around the world, it becomes easier to understand what this unprecedented pandemic means for human society. Many people, limited by their knowledge and imagination, find it hard to see the subversive impact of plagues on human society. But this book can broaden our horizons and let us see deeper and farther.

Fifteen Lectures on the History of Medicine: This is a general-reader book published by Peking University Press in 2007. The author, Professor Zhang Daqing, is director of the Center for History of Medicine at Peking University. It is a popular science book for medical students, intended to help them understand the history of the development of human medicine and evaluate medicine's profound impact on human society.

However, this is not a dry, bitter professional medical book; it can also be recommended to the general public as popular science reading.

By understanding the history of medicine, we can learn about the whole experience of humanity's battle against disease and build a macro-level understanding of the development of human medicine. This understanding helps us overcome our own narrowness and view human plague history and humanity's experience in dealing with epidemics more rationally and scientifically.

The Plague: This is a novel by the famous French writer and philosopher Albert Camus. The Plague depicts the various phenomena that emerge in a North African city called Oran after a sudden outbreak of plague, showing us the many problems that arise during an infectious disease outbreak.

Many of the problems we face today are very similar to those described in this novel. Through this literary work, we can understand that, from ancient times to the present, humanity has been both fragile and resilient during pandemics; light and darkness have always coexisted. Crisis reveals people's baseness as well as their nobility.

We are currently in an unprecedented period: COVID-19 has set unprecedented records in transmission speed and geographic spread, and it is also highly lethal. People believe a vaccine will help us escape the COVID-19 crisis, but there is no precedent in human history for resolving a crisis with a vaccine during an outbreak; that kind of scenario exists only in science fiction movies.

Our understanding of this highly mutable RNA virus is also not yet deep enough. Some basic scientific and historical common sense can help us deepen our understanding of plagues and promote our reflection on human nature and society.

From an ecological standpoint, plague epidemics caused by viruses are a means by which the earth itself regulates ecological balance. From a sociological standpoint, plagues have continuously promoted the progress of human civilization.

Of course, the lethality of plagues is also terrifying. The 1918–1919 Spanish Flu caused more deaths than all the various wars of the previous hundred years (including World War I and World War II) combined. The lessons the Spanish Flu taught human society were also unprecedented; it was against such a backdrop that the World Health Organization was founded.

The original purpose of the WHO was to prevent large-scale plagues like COVID-19, but unfortunately humanity has not fulfilled that wish. The most critical aspect of epidemics is prevention; once prevention fails, control becomes extremely difficult. The past cannot be admonished, but the future can still be pursued. What should we do in the future to prevent similar large-scale plagues? This is worth everyone's consideration.

Reading can calm people down. May everyone gain something from reading and let their minds truly grow.