I really enjoyed the stories in this book – which were really columns by Berton Roueche from the New Yorker, mostly from the 1940s-60s, I guess.

The stories are, for the most part, written up almost like whodunnits – here’s the case, a patient or group of patients mysteriously ill. What ails them? If it’s a poison (for example), where does it come from? Why is it striking now? The doctors in the stories have to hunt for clues, put them together and solve the cases.

The book is also chock full of interesting anecdotes. For example, did you know some people think that pork may have been declared verboten for Muslims/Jews as a public health measure, millennia ago?

I especially liked the cases in this book that involved the Epidemic Intelligence Service. I guess I’m rather interested in epidemiology, and am even more so after reading this book. It has inspired me to buy and read Beating Back the Devil, about the EIS, which seems like a really interesting programme.