The Economist 04Apr2020

The EconomistApril 4th 2020 Books & arts 73

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L

acking brainsor much of a gut, jelly-

fish, which are 95% water, are decep-

tively simple in structure. Yet they are oth-

erworldly in appearance, as their

names—lion’s mane, flower hat—imply.

Neither fish nor jelly and rather more like

slime, they puzzled Aristotle. Were they an-

imals or plants? Even the father of taxon-

omy, Carl Linnaeus, was stumped.

In fact, Peter Williams writes in his en-

gaging and handsomely illustrated book,

they are animals of surprising sophistica-

tion, with an ingenious portfolio of strata-

gems. Deepstaria enigmaticaliterally bags

its meal by enfolding prey in its sheet-like

body and tightening the edge like a draw-

string. Erenna, a deepwater species, lures

tiny crustaceans to their doom with lumi-

nescent tentacles. Turritopsis dohrnii, the

“immortal” jellyfish, pulls off the most

stunning ploy of all. When injured, it shifts

into developmental reverse, devolving

back into a polyp, its earliest stage of life. A

Japanese researcher says unlocking the se-

cret of this immortality is “the most won-

derful dream of mankind”.

Until the advent of underwater cam-

eras, their shape-shifting forms frustrated

would-be illustrators and researchers. You

might as well dissect a soap bubble. Unlike

mammals, fish or insects, they could not be

stuffed, mounted or pinned. Preservation

was tricky; alcohol degraded their colour

Creatures of the deep

Rich and strange

Jellyfish.By Peter Williams. Reaktion Books;

224 pages; $19.95 and £12.95

Pale Rider.By Laura Spinney (Public Affairs;
Vintage)
The Spanish flu pandemic that began in
1918 killed around 50m people in a few
years—more deaths than in the preceding
four years of world war. Young adults
seemed to perish disproportionately from
what was an especially virulent strain of
the influenza virus. Doctors could do very
little about the sickness, so countries
closed their borders and blamed each
other. This book tells the story not only of
the devastation at the time, but also of the
century of scientific detective-work that
was required to understand why the
episode was so deadly.

Spillover.By David Quammen (W.W. Norton;
Vintage)
Some of the outbreaks of disease that have
caused most distress among human beings
have come from animals. Other, non-
human primates were the source of hiv;
influenza transferred from birds, and
coronaviruses from bats. When the human
immune system is newly confronted with
something that has just hopped the species
barrier—a so-called zoonosis—it can be
overwhelmed. By tracking the origin of
several zoonoses, this book explains how
such diseases emerge, why they are so
dangerous and where in the world the next
ones might arise.

The Rules of Contagion. By Adam Kucharski

(Basic Books; Wellcome Collection)

Today, the freedoms and daily routines of

many countries are held in the hands of

epidemiologists. Amid the pandemic,

these mathematical modellers have

supplied scenarios for how travel bans,

social distancing or stay-at-home policies

could alter the trajectory of covid-19. This

book charts the history of this now-pivotal

science, from its origins in understanding

the spread of malaria at the turn of the 20th

century, to its central role in predicting the

dissemination of everything from diseases

to fake news in the 21st.

A Journal of the Plague Year.By Daniel

Defoe (Oxford University Press)

A diary of one man’s life in 1665, when the

bubonic plague swept through London,

killing almost 100,000. The book recounts

the progress of the disease as it transforms

the city, describing streets that are either

eerily empty or filled with the sounds and

smells of suffering. Defoe was only five in

1665 and wrote the book, which blends

historical detail and imagination, more

than 50 years after the event. He is thought

to have based it on the contemporaneous

diaries of his uncle, Henry Foe.

The End of Epidemics. By Jonathan Quick

and Bronwyn Fryer (St Martin’s Press; Scribe)

Published two years ago, this book’s simple

message ought to have been more widely

heeded: planning, preparation and open

communication count for everything

when it comes to ameliorating the vast

social and economic damage that a new

infection can cause. Using insights from

previous outbreaks, the authors offer

lessons on how global institutions can best

co-ordinate to predict, model and prevent

future pandemics. 7

Five books of science and history that
cast light on covid-19

Pandemics of yore

How to understand

a plague

Ward rounds in 1918