I really enjoy reading about different diseases, but I like to get the books from the Youth Department. They have just enough information with out being too technical for my interest. Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary by Gail Jarrow was a very interesting read. I’m sure most people know that Typhoid Mary was exiled to live on an island, but did you know she NEVER believed that she was a typhoid carrier. And even though the book list many other carriers who caused death, she was the only one exiled. Interestingly, the man who tracked down Typhoid Mary had a Ph.D. in engineering and advertised himself as a “Sanitary Engineer and Chemist,” I always thought a medical doctor figured out who she was. Typhoid outbreaks still occasionally happen in the United States and is spread through feces, so the books ends with instructions on hand washing (which is still the best defense again typhoid) from the website for the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (cdc.gov/handwashing).

Polly R.