Enigmas of Health and Disease

Alfredo Morabia is an MD, board certified in internal and occupational medicine, and professor of epidemiology at the Barry Commoner Center, Queens College, City University of New York, and at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.

Preface to the English Edition Prologue: A Science Named Epidemiology 1. Comparing Groups and the Fifth Dimension 2. People, Bugs, and Epidemics 3. Plague's Shark Teeth and Seamen's Enigmatic Exhaustion 4. The Mystery of the Blue Death 5. The Numerical Method 6. Eugenics, Oysters, Sour Skin, and Breast Cancer 7. Tobacco and Health: The Great Controversy 8. Daily Life Mysteries and Epidemiology 9. Is This Treatment Dangerous for Health? 10. Does the Treatment Work? 11. What Is the Optimal Medical Decision? 12. Health Risk or Health Benefit? 13. Is This Screening Useful? 14. Group Comparisons Also Fail 15. Epidemiologic Literacy and "Earthly Self-Realization" 16. Beyond Epidemiology Epilogue: The End of Epidemiology? Appendix 1: Interaction of Causes Appendix 2: Odds Ratio and Risk Ratio Appendix 3: Why Cohort and Case-Control Studies Concur Appendix 4: Where Do the Cases of Lung Cancer Come From? Notes Bibliography Index