Arno Karlen

Biography of a germ

Anyone who goes for a walk in the woods in the USA should know about the need to guard against Lyme disease. But thinking about deer and their ticks tends to obscure the organism which is actually responsible, a bacterium called Borrelia burdorferi or Bb for short. This book tells its story, and of the challenges it faces as it moves between its various hosts. The book requires no previous knowledge of the subject, and teaches the reader a fair amount of biology along the way. Despite the nature of the subject, it makes an excellent choice for a little light reading.

Karlen tells us about the place of Bb in the classification and evolution of living things, of the development of the germ theory of disease and the reasons why this disease was first seen in Lyme (and what the inhabitants thought about having a disease named after their town).

I have to say though that I felt that the book didn't go into as much detail about Bb itself as I'd expected - maybe more bacteriology would have made the book seem too technical. I feel that it is more of the story of Lyme disease rather than of the organism that causes it.

Amazon.com info

Hardcover 224 pages
ISBN: 0575066059
Salesrank: 3494526

Published: 2000 Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Marketplace:New from $4.73:Used from $2.95

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Amazon.co.uk info

Hardcover 224 pages
ISBN: 0575066059
Salesrank: 963088

Published: 2000 Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Marketplace:New from £4.87:Used from £0.45

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.co.uk Review
The philosopher Wittgenstein might say that if a microbe could talk we couldn't understand it, but psychoanalyst and science writer Arno Karlenhas done his best to listen and translate in Biography of a Germ. This lovely, funny, and even endearing portrait of Borrelia burgdorferi (or Bb), the screwy bacterium that causes Lyme disease, would charm even a terminal mysophobe like Howard Hughes. Unfortunately, Karlen has to justify his topic at greater length than most biographers, but his reasoning is nearly lyrical in its enthusiasm for the microscopic. Following the genealogy of the germ back to our common ancestor (gulp) and beyond, the author finds a freshness in what we too often see as dry taxonomy and genetics. From there he watches Bb as it makes its way through the circulation superhighways of deer, ticks, and hikers, each as top on its complex life cycle. We elbowed our way into Bb's story comparatively recently, ironically hurting ourselves as we renewed our appreciation of and commitment to wilderness areas. As we destroyed, and then created, habitat for deer, we ended up inviting Bb to run amok in our bodies. Karlen captures the beauty and terror of this bizarre chain of events perfectly, providing new insights into our relationship with our environment. Much like its cousins that live harmlessly in our bloodstream, eyelashes, and gut, this tick-borne germ will eventually evolve a truce with us to protect its reproduction; unfortunately for current and future sufferers of Lyme disease, we're quite a few generations away from that happy time. While we're waiting, we can read Biography of a Germ to learn more about our new tenants and why we should care about them. --Rob Lightner

Amazon.co.uk Review

The philosopher Wittgenstein might say that if a microbe could talk we couldn't understand it, but psychoanalyst and science writer Arno Karlenhas done his best to listen and translate in Biography of a Germ. This lovely, funny, and even endearing portrait of Borrelia burgdorferi (or Bb), the screwy bacterium that causes Lyme disease, would charm even a terminal mysophobe like Howard Hughes. Unfortunately, Karlen has to justify his topic at greater length than most biographers, but his reasoning is nearly lyrical in its enthusiasm for the microscopic. Following the genealogy of the germ back to our common ancestor (gulp) and beyond, the author finds a freshness in what we too often see as dry taxonomy and genetics. From there he watches Bb as it makes its way through the circulation superhighways of deer, ticks, and hikers, each as top on its complex life cycle.

We elbowed our way into Bb's story comparatively recently, ironically hurting ourselves as we renewed our appreciation of and commitment to wilderness areas. As we destroyed, and then created, habitat for deer, we ended up inviting Bb to run amok in our bodies. Karlen captures the beauty and terror of this bizarre chain of events perfectly, providing new insights into our relationship with our environment. Much like its cousins that live harmlessly in our bloodstream, eyelashes, and gut, this tick-borne germ will eventually evolve a truce with us to protect its reproduction; unfortunately for current and future sufferers of Lyme disease, we're quite a few generations away from that happy time. While we're waiting, we can read Biography of a Germ to learn more about our new tenants and why we should care about them. --Rob Lightner

A triumph of popular scientific writing *****
An unusual premise which really works - 'The Biography of a Germ' is a triumph of popular scientific writing. While this book acts as a brilliant introduction to the microbial world, it has a more serious message about the interaction between human activity and disease. Concentrating on the Lyme disease bacterium (a big problem in the USA), Arno Karlen describes the raw facts of the microbe's lifecycle with flare (which is no easy thing to do), the factors which led to this normally inocuous microbe's emergence as a human disease, and the plight of the families which brought this disease to light in the 1970s.

A triumph of popular scientific writing *****

An unusual premise which really works - 'The Biography of a Germ' is a triumph of popular scientific writing. While this book acts as a brilliant introduction to the microbial world, it has a more serious message about the interaction between human activity and disease. Concentrating on the Lyme disease bacterium (a big problem in the USA), Arno Karlen describes the raw facts of the microbe's lifecycle with flare (which is no easy thing to do), the factors which led to this normally inocuous microbe's emergence as a human disease, and the plight of the families which brought this disease to light in the 1970s.

Fascinating, well-read introduction to the subject of germs ****
From its title, I didn't quite know what to expect, but must say found this a really interesting book. It takes as its germ of choice Borelia Bergdorferi and proceeds to describe how it was discovered, what its life-cycle is like, the impact of environmental change, and how it interacts with its hosts. Since this is the spirochete responsible for Lyme disease, something I had heard of but knew little about, it presented quite an important lesson as well, about how human interference in ecosystems has ultimately caused illness among ourselves. It is quite a slender volume, but very well-written, and has certainly whetted my appetite for the subject. It is aimed at the layman, and if you have any interest in the subjects of microbiology or the environment, it is definitely worth buying and reading.

Fascinating, well-read introduction to the subject of germs ****

From its title, I didn't quite know what to expect, but must say found this a really interesting book. It takes as its germ of choice Borelia Bergdorferi and proceeds to describe how it was discovered, what its life-cycle is like, the impact of environmental change, and how it interacts with its hosts. Since this is the spirochete responsible for Lyme disease, something I had heard of but knew little about, it presented quite an important lesson as well, about how human interference in ecosystems has ultimately caused illness among ourselves. It is quite a slender volume, but very well-written, and has certainly whetted my appetite for the subject. It is aimed at the layman, and if you have any interest in the subjects of microbiology or the environment, it is definitely worth buying and reading.