Some of their responses to those outbreaks are almost too strange to believe in hindsight. Throughout time, humans have been terrified and fascinated by the diseases history and circumstance have dropped on them. And in turn-of-the-century New York, an Irish cook caused two lethal outbreaks of typhoid fever, a case that transformed her into the notorious Typhoid Mary. In late-19th-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome - a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon 34 more villagers joined her. In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn't stop. A witty, irreverent tour of history's worst plagues - from the Antonine Plague, to leprosy, to polio - and a celebration of the heroes who fought them.
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