“Swords, Lances, arrows, machine guns, and even high explosives have had far less power over the fates of nations than the typhus louse, the plague flea, and the yellow-fever mosquito. Civilizations have retreated from the plasmodium of malaria, and armies… — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
“Infectious disease is one of the great tragedies of living things - the struggle for existence between two different forms of life... Incessantly, the… — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
Infectious Disease is one of the few genuine adventures left in the world. — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
Infectious disease is one of the few genuine adventures left in the world. The dragons are all dead and the lance grows rusty in… — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
Our task as we grow older in a rapidly advancing science, is to retain the capacity of joy in discoveries which correct older ideas,… — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
“It is with the [head louse and body louse] that we are chiefly concerned, and they are so closely related that, even now, by… — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
... [I]nfectious disease is merely a disagreeable instance of a widely prevalent tendency of all living creatures to save themselves the bother of building,… — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
Throughout the early Christian period, every great calamity - famine, earthquake, and plague - led to mass conversions, another indirect influence by which epidemic… — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
“Medical historians have cited many observations which they regarded as indicating the ancient existence of syphilis; but most of these, on close scrutiny, turn… — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
“Man and the rat are utterly destructive. All that nature offers is taken for their own purposes, plant or beast. Gradually these two have… — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
But however secure and well-regulated civilized life may become, bacteria, Protozoa, viruses, infected fleas, lice, ticks, mosquitoes, and bedbugs will always lurk in the… — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
“In 1577 there was committed to prison at Oxford a certain Rowland Jencks, a Catholic bookbinder who was accused of speaking evil of ‘that… — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
We have chosen to write the biography of our disease because we love it platonically - as Amy Lowell loved Keats - and have… — Hans Zinsser Copy Share Image
![“It is with the [head louse and body louse] that we are chiefly concerned, and they are so closely related that, even now, by an occasional mésalliance resulting from the meetings of young people about the neck band, a body louse may go native and interbreed with a head louse. The crab louse we may…” quote by Hans Zinsser](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/7d6/hans-zinsser-34557_young-people_it-is-with-the-head-louse-and-body-louse_1442761.jpg)
![“... [I]nfectious disease is merely a disagreeable instance of a widely prevalent tendency of all living creatures to save themselves the bother of building, by their own efforts, the things they require. Whenever they find it possible to take advantage of the constructive labors of others, this is…” quote by Hans Zinsser](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/0c7/hans-zinsser-34557_advantage_i-nfectious-disease-is-merely-a-disagree_1503200.jpg)
![“Medical historians have cited many observations which they regarded as indicating the ancient existence of syphilis; but most of these, on close scrutiny, turn out to be unconvincing […] Ozanam quotes two sonnets from a Florentine poet—one entitled ‘De Matrona,’ the other 'Ad Priapum'—which he…” quote by Hans Zinsser](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/0f5/hans-zinsser-34557_history_medical-historians-have-cited-many-obser_1854315.jpg)
