Evolution of Infectious Disease. Edited ... xiv + 250 pp. Oxford, England: Oxford ... have presented infectious disease specialists and others with new ... This edited volume is the follow-up to a book .... disciplines, ranging from microbiology and.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY 16:489–497 (2004)
Book Reviews Emerging Pathogens: Archaeology, Ecology & Evolution of Infectious Disease. Edited by Charles Greenblatt and Mark Spigelman. xiv + 250 pp. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 2003. $130.00 (cloth), $64.50 (paper). The reemergence of ancient diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria and the appearance of seemingly new diseases such as Legionnaires’ disease, SARS, AIDS, and Ebola, the so-called ‘‘emerging’’ diseases, have presented infectious disease specialists and others with new and unusual challenges. This edited volume is the follow-up to a book (Greenblatt, 1998) that convened physical anthropologists, medical ecologists, and molecular biologists in a symposium held in Jerusalem in 1997 to address questions regarding emerging diseases by examining the evolution of ancient diseases. One of the principal aims of that gathering and edited volume was to bridge the gap between infectious disease specialists who treat living people and paleopathologists who describe pathology in skeletal and mummified remains. Much has happened since the Jerusalem conference. Most notably, the heralded human genome project has been brought to completion, there have been refinements in aDNA research, and, most significantly, appropriate diseases (e.g., influenza and tuberculosis) for which suitable collections exist and the DNA of many more pathogens or their chemical signatures have been identified. Many of these advances are highlighted in this new compilation, which includes work written by physical anthropologists, ecologists, and molecular biologists. Certainly the 16 chapters, many written by key researchers in this emerging field, which include studies on the identification of ancient biomolecules, the evolution of pathogens, and the influence of disease on the evolution and structure of populations, and one chapter devoted to a discussion among the contributors, represent an important contribution to understanding both ancient as well as emerging diseases. The volume is divided into four sections. The five chapters in the first section provide the evolutionary context of pathogenesis. Chapter 1, by C.L. Greenblatt, introduces and provides an overview of the volume as well as important background on new emerging
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diseases, the history of infectious disease, and how infection began and became disease. Chapter 2, by L.D. Martin, traces the emergence of disease in humans and primates in the context of world history and population ecology while emphasizing the need for a theoretical framework in studies of paleopathology. Chapter 3, by H.-D. Go¨rtz and R. Michel, examines bacterial infections in protozoa and invertebrates as hosts or vectors of human disease. The chapter by R.J. Cano (Ch. 4) investigates the borderline between symbiosis and parasitism in bacteria symbionts that survive in 25–40-million-year-old amberentrapped bees. The final chapter (Ch. 5) in this section, by W.C. Black IV, outlines the evolution of vector-borne diseases focusing on arthropod–parasite interactions. The five chapters in the next section examine a number of topics including the co-evolution of human pathogens, the role of primate and human behavior in disease, challenges to research in paleopathology, including the standardization of comparative data for differential diagnosis, and the evolution of parasite virulence. Chapter 6, by J. Baum and G. Kahila BarGal, focuses on the great diversity of human pathogens, especially those that have arisen through cross-species transmission from other organisms and the co-evolution of the pathogens with human hosts, old and recent, with a detailed look at virulence. Chapter 7, by M.N. Cohen and G. Crane-Kramer, draws attention to the profound importance of human social and ecological changes to disease organisms and the evolution of general health. After providing a review of paleopathology in nonhuman primates, these authors then focus on the biological/health consequences of human sedentism and domestication. D.H. Ubelaker’s contribution, Chapter 8, outlines a number of key challenges to future studies in paleopathology, most notably standardization of terminology, improvements in differential diagnoses, and interpretation of the impact of disease on the individual, training, and new techniques for understanding past disease. Chapter 9, by B. Rothschild, reiterates the need for standardized comparative data in paleopathological diagnosis. Arthritis, treponemal disease, and tuberculosis are used to illustrate the data-based approach for the analysis of osteological material. The final chapter in this section, Chapter 10, by P.W. Ewald, underscores a major unifying theme evident in many of
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the chapters in this volume, the role of natural selection and the importance of evolution in understanding human pathogenesis. Using an evolutionary perspective, Ewald explores two topics, the evolution of virulence and the scope of infectious causation, while highlighting the flaws of earlier prevailing dogma, which failed to take into consideration natural selection. The six chapters in the final section expose readers to some of the latest technologies for defining paleoepidemiology from both a molecular and evolutionary viewpoint. Chapter 11, by C.D. Matheson and D. Brain, discusses the survival of biomolecules of the host organism and the pathogen and the importance of taking taphonomy into consideration. The latter includes the much-overlooked second-order processes that lead to the loss of information during excavation, sampling, storage, analysis, and presentation of results. Chapter 12, by B. Herrmann and S. Hummel, focuses on the pros and cons of molecular approaches to studies of ancient diseases and makes the provocative claim that aDNA analysis may provide the ultimate diagnosis of ancient diseases and endemic infection rates. Herrmann and Hummel provide a useful list of the pathogens identified so far (e.g., tuberculosis, leprosy, bubonic plague, malaria, etc.) using molecular approaches. Chapter 13, by O. Dutour Y. Ardagana, M. Maczel, and M. Signoli, presents new advances in the molecular identification of Yersinia pestis (bubonic plague) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis) in ancient human skeletal remains. Chapter 14, by J.P. Nataro, O.C. Stine, J.B. Kaper, and M.M. Levine, examines enteric (Salmonella, Shigella, Vibrio) and diarrheagenic (Escherichia coli) infectious diseases, which have had devastating effects on humans since the origins of our species. Cholera is used as a case study. Chapter 15, by M. Spigelman and H.D. Donoghue, introduces the relatively new science of paleobacteriology and the molecular evidence of tuberculosis and leprosy. The last chapter in this section (Chapter 16), by J.K. Taubenberger and A.H. Reid, focuses on the molecular evidence of viral infections using archival tissue specimens to examine the 1918 ‘‘Spanish’’ influenza pandemic virus. The final chapter in this volume, Chapter 17, the text of a ‘‘virtual’’ discussion provided by many of the contributors, highlights some of the problems and promises of ancient pathogen research. One major drawback of
an otherwise nicely edited and illustrated book is that the references cited for these individual chapters are combined at the end of the volume. A minor editorial glitch is the repeated text on pages 107 and 112. The chapters in this volume provide important background on the study of ancient pathogens, including some of the latest contributions from molecular biology, the history and evolution of human disease, and the importance of evolutionary biology in understanding ancient as well as modern emerging diseases. Indeed, the editors, as well as many of the contributors, believe that armed with such knowledge humans may even one day be able to coexist with microbial pathogens. Although primarily aimed at infectious disease specialists and medical researchers, Emerging Pathogens, by striking an interdisciplinary approach, will also have considerable appeal to human biologists, medical anthropologists, human and medical ecologists, paleopathologists, bioarcheologists, evolutionary biologists, and others interested in paleoepidemiology and ancient emerging diseases. The individual chapters in this book will both stimulate debate and inspire cooperation, and hopefully collaboration, among specialists from a variety of different fields. LITERATURE CITED Greenblatt CL (ed.). 1998. Digging for pathogens: ancient emerging diseases—their evolutionary, anthropological, and archaeological context. Rehovot, Israel: Balaban.
MICHAEL PIETRUSEWSKY Department of Anthropology University of Hawaii at Manoa Honolulu, Hawaii DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.20031
Learning from HIV and AIDS. Edited by George Ellison, Melissa Parker, and Catherine Campbell. Biosocial Society Symposium Series. xviii + 299 pp. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 2003. $100.00 (cloth), $38.00 (paper). Learning from HIV and AIDS is a solid and instructive collection of studies from multiple disciplines, ranging from microbiology and genetics to clinical practice to anthropology
