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An Introduction to Infectious Diseases
Listening Length 12 hours and 40 minutes
Infectious diseases touch the lives of everyone on the planet. Whether it's something as minor as a brush with the common cold or as serious as Ebola, we all have grappled with infections and will continue to encounter them as we age.
On a worldwide scale, infectious diseases account for 26 percent of all deaths, second only to cardiovascular diseases. And unlike chronic diseases, infectious diseases are unique in their potential for explosive global impacts.
Now, in the 24 engaging lectures of Introduction to Infectious Diseases, you can get a comprehensive overview of diseases from the mundane to the fatal from renowned physician and award-winning professor Dr. Barry Fox.
Begin with an overview of the microscopic particles responsible for disease: bacteria, fungi, hybrid germs, and viruses. You will see how they invade the body; look through the microscope at pathogens to identify their inner components; follow germs through to different body systems and see what effects they have; and learn why we may be losing the battle against some germs.
Infectious diseases touch the lives of everyone on the planet. Whether it's something as minor as a brush with the common cold or as serious as Ebola, we all have grappled with infections and will continue to encounter them as we age.
On a worldwide scale, infectious diseases account for 26 percent of all deaths, second only to cardiovascular diseases. And unlike chronic diseases, infectious diseases are unique in their potential for explosive global impacts.
Now, in the 24 engaging lectures of Introduction to Infectious Diseases, you can get a comprehensive overview of diseases from the mundane to the fatal from renowned physician and award-winning professor Dr. Barry Fox.
Begin with an overview of the microscopic particles responsible for disease: bacteria, fungi, hybrid germs, and viruses. You will see how they invade the body; look through the microscope at pathogens to identify their inner components; follow germs through to different body systems and see what effects they have; and learn why we may be losing the battle against some germs.
13 pages, Audible Audio
First published January 1, 2015
10 people are currently reading
95 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
February 7, 2020
Great read. Perfect timing for it come to the top of my to be read list.
WARNING: Do not read if you already a germaphobe. You might never leave your house again.....
WARNING: Do not read if you already a germaphobe. You might never leave your house again.....
March 19, 2022
I listened to this one. If you have any interest in the spread of disease and their impact through time, this is a very interesting read/listen. It covers a lot of people who have made progress in study and progress such as Henrietta Lacks and Ignaz Semmelweis and these inserts keeps this from being too dry. Although it is very informative, it is not hard to follow, even as a layman.
August 6, 2018
This was very American. In many ways.
December 30, 2020
There is nothing like listening in 2020 to a series of lectures on infectious diseases written in 2015. Fascinating but their speculation of the next pandemic wasn’t quite spot on.
August 16, 2024
3. 5 stars, rounded down. Professor Barry Fox walks the listener through a history of infectious diseases and how they have impacted humanity as well as the current progress the medical field is making in combating infectious diseases. Professor Fox is easy to understand and listen to, he has no distracting speech mannerisms. He is very well qualified to be teaching this course. He is recognized as being one of the leading experts of infectious diseases in the country.
This course started a little slowly for me. The early courses, where Professor Fox is giving background about how viruses and bacteria have been combated down through history was a bit dry. It was easy for me to lose my attention. As the course worked its way through its 24 lectures, it started to get better. By the end, I was pretty engaged with what I was learning. I did learn a lot from listening to these lectures. While not a novice to the subject, I certainly have a lot to keep learning about infectious diseases. I like to keep abreast of the current news in this field. Probably pretty important to mention that these lectures were made in 2015, so before the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Professor Fox does postulate on the corona virus and how it might one day have the potential to be a future global threat, but obviously he did not foresee the magnitude of what unfolded.
As many other reviewers have mentioned, it would be great to have an updated course on Infectious Diseases and what lessons we have learned in light of the Covid experience. That would be something I would be glad to tune in for.
This course started a little slowly for me. The early courses, where Professor Fox is giving background about how viruses and bacteria have been combated down through history was a bit dry. It was easy for me to lose my attention. As the course worked its way through its 24 lectures, it started to get better. By the end, I was pretty engaged with what I was learning. I did learn a lot from listening to these lectures. While not a novice to the subject, I certainly have a lot to keep learning about infectious diseases. I like to keep abreast of the current news in this field. Probably pretty important to mention that these lectures were made in 2015, so before the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Professor Fox does postulate on the corona virus and how it might one day have the potential to be a future global threat, but obviously he did not foresee the magnitude of what unfolded.
As many other reviewers have mentioned, it would be great to have an updated course on Infectious Diseases and what lessons we have learned in light of the Covid experience. That would be something I would be glad to tune in for.
May 20, 2020
I enjoyed this course. Professor Barry Fox has a great teaching style.
This course is 24 lectures; each ~30mins.
Professor Barry C. Fox:
"An Introduction to Infectious Diseases" covers much of the basics of infectious disease; From a background on bacteria and viruses, to other pathogens. Fox also teaches the viewer a brief history of vaccines, antibiotics, and other drugs. This course was very well written, edited, and produced.
I have listened and watched dozens of courses from the Great Courses, and they definitely have a higher production quality lately; utilizing slick computer animations and graphics to illustrate technical points. Good stuff!
One thing that detracted a bit from this series was the last lecture about future global pandemics (this course was produced in 2015). Fox lays out a table of many infectious pathogens; bacteria, virus, insect-borne, and tick-borne as potential candidates for mass contagion. He then goes through the table and removes most of these step by step - including Coronaviruses, because they have long incubation periods where the patient can be admitted to hospital care.
This seemed like backwards reasoning to me, and our current situation has proved this line of reasoning false. A long incubation period where the patient is asymptomatic leads to a higher Basic Reproduction Number, not lower.
I would still definitely recommend this course to anyone interested, especially since The Great Courses has released it for free!
5 stars.
This course is 24 lectures; each ~30mins.
Professor Barry C. Fox:
"An Introduction to Infectious Diseases" covers much of the basics of infectious disease; From a background on bacteria and viruses, to other pathogens. Fox also teaches the viewer a brief history of vaccines, antibiotics, and other drugs. This course was very well written, edited, and produced.
I have listened and watched dozens of courses from the Great Courses, and they definitely have a higher production quality lately; utilizing slick computer animations and graphics to illustrate technical points. Good stuff!
One thing that detracted a bit from this series was the last lecture about future global pandemics (this course was produced in 2015). Fox lays out a table of many infectious pathogens; bacteria, virus, insect-borne, and tick-borne as potential candidates for mass contagion. He then goes through the table and removes most of these step by step - including Coronaviruses, because they have long incubation periods where the patient can be admitted to hospital care.
This seemed like backwards reasoning to me, and our current situation has proved this line of reasoning false. A long incubation period where the patient is asymptomatic leads to a higher Basic Reproduction Number, not lower.
I would still definitely recommend this course to anyone interested, especially since The Great Courses has released it for free!
5 stars.
August 26, 2023
Interesting to a point, but rather scattered. I was already thinking of giving up when to my horror, the author went into a fairly lengthy discussion of HeLa cells without mentioning the fact that Henrietta Lacks was black, that the original cells were stolen without her knowledge, or that her estate never received any compensation. The end result is an implication that her cervical cancer was her fault because she didn't get a Pap test, and that she made a selfless gift to all the heroic researchers who subsequently used them, when in reality she was repeatedly betrayed by a racist and misogynistic medical system.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, fo read The Immortal Lives of Henrietta Lacks instead of this.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, fo read The Immortal Lives of Henrietta Lacks instead of this.
October 8, 2022
Good clear lecture style. I learnt a lot, and the areas which I am familiar with were dealt with well.
February 21, 2016
By the end I had grown rather fond of the lecturer, so I feel bad giving an unfavorable review, but there was not enough content for the time spent. Perhaps this is partly because Dr. Fox speaks very slowly - I confess to watching it on the first notch of fast forward (as my impatient children sometimes do with such lectures) and then the pace was about right. My son was about to travel to the tropics so I found some of the information immediately useful. Only good for those with very little knowledge about the subject - a true introduction. Moreover, some of the Teaching Company's technical production was ill judged and distracting - they seem to have settled into an effective staging style in more recent courses.
July 20, 2020
This is one of the “Great Courses” series and was offered free by my local library. It seemed like a timely subject, but it took me a while to get through the 24 lectures. There was a lot of material!
The course reviewed all the types of infectious disease agents, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and insect and tick-bourne diseases. I admit to being overwhelmed from hearing the list of possible diseases one could contract. And, shame on me, I was unaware of the continuing prevalence of both malaria and tuberculosis in the world today, diseases that such organizations as the Gates Foundation has worked to combat.
The most interesting lecture was the last. This course was produced in 2015, and the last lecture was about predicting a “cataclysmic” global pandemic. The lecturer, Barry Fox, defines this as a disease that spreads to all continents, is difficult to treat, and is extremely deadly, causing “hundreds of thousand of deaths worldwide”. As of today, worldwide deaths from Covid 19 exceed 600,000. I don’t think Covid threatens to wipe out mankind, as Fox says a cataclysmic pandemic might, but it qualifies based on the other criteria. It may not be as deadly as he envisions might happen.
His conclusions as to a likely catastrophic pandemic were:
--It is likely in our children’s or grandchildren’s life times;
--It will spread around the world in three weeks;
--It is most likely zoonotic, spreading from animals to humans, something that is occurring more often now with destruction of animal habitats;
--It is most likely to originate in East or Southeast Asia, due to contact with such animals and to population density;
--It will most likely be caused by a virus, as opposed to bacteria or tick or insect bourne diseases.
--It cannot be too deadly, as infected hosts need to survive to pass the virus along to someone else.
Although SARS and MERS, two recent coronaviruses, were considered likely candidates, he thought these weren’t most likely because of their 4 to 7-day incubation period. This allows time for quarantine to prevent spread of the disease (theoretically!) . Fox thought that avian flu would most likely be the cause. It has a very short incubation period, allowing for rapid transmission.
Interesting and frightening. As we’ve heard on the news lately, we should have known this was coming. Fox even recommended that business have contingency plans in place to allow work from home.
I wonder what we will ultimately learn from the current pandemic.
The course reviewed all the types of infectious disease agents, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and insect and tick-bourne diseases. I admit to being overwhelmed from hearing the list of possible diseases one could contract. And, shame on me, I was unaware of the continuing prevalence of both malaria and tuberculosis in the world today, diseases that such organizations as the Gates Foundation has worked to combat.
The most interesting lecture was the last. This course was produced in 2015, and the last lecture was about predicting a “cataclysmic” global pandemic. The lecturer, Barry Fox, defines this as a disease that spreads to all continents, is difficult to treat, and is extremely deadly, causing “hundreds of thousand of deaths worldwide”. As of today, worldwide deaths from Covid 19 exceed 600,000. I don’t think Covid threatens to wipe out mankind, as Fox says a cataclysmic pandemic might, but it qualifies based on the other criteria. It may not be as deadly as he envisions might happen.
His conclusions as to a likely catastrophic pandemic were:
--It is likely in our children’s or grandchildren’s life times;
--It will spread around the world in three weeks;
--It is most likely zoonotic, spreading from animals to humans, something that is occurring more often now with destruction of animal habitats;
--It is most likely to originate in East or Southeast Asia, due to contact with such animals and to population density;
--It will most likely be caused by a virus, as opposed to bacteria or tick or insect bourne diseases.
--It cannot be too deadly, as infected hosts need to survive to pass the virus along to someone else.
Although SARS and MERS, two recent coronaviruses, were considered likely candidates, he thought these weren’t most likely because of their 4 to 7-day incubation period. This allows time for quarantine to prevent spread of the disease (theoretically!) . Fox thought that avian flu would most likely be the cause. It has a very short incubation period, allowing for rapid transmission.
Interesting and frightening. As we’ve heard on the news lately, we should have known this was coming. Fox even recommended that business have contingency plans in place to allow work from home.
I wonder what we will ultimately learn from the current pandemic.
April 29, 2020
Good information kept in layman's language. Fascinating to listen to during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, especially the final lecture conjecturing on the potential for a "future" pandemic and it's predicted probable cause. This certainly served as a reminder that pandemics are not new to human history and I'm interested in what a huge difference communications and travel technology advances have made over the years as humans combat infectious diseases.
August 20, 2020
Interesting information to become more familiar with during a pandemic. Its darkly humorous at times because this was recorded in 2015, the references to potential future pandemics come off really softly given the current covid-19 situation.
Good information poor lecture performance.
Good information poor lecture performance.
June 24, 2023
If you are interested in a career or even just interested in infectious diseases, this is not a bad overview! I listened for some refresher knowledge and liked the presentation style. That last chapter tho 👀
I loved how prepared he thought we were, twas cute!
I loved how prepared he thought we were, twas cute!
December 28, 2018
The information is interesting. I listened to the audio. The professor is not the best reader I've listened to. His delivery is somewhat wooden.
July 15, 2019
Watch a detailed review along with my favorite ideas and takeaways at:
https://youtu.be/Kgq8DUcLVrA
https://youtu.be/Kgq8DUcLVrA
December 30, 2019
Couldn’t wait to keep coming back to listening to this one. I’m a huge fan of TGC and this one taught me a lot.
June 21, 2020
Very dry read but I gleamed some interesting facts I didn't know.
October 12, 2020
A little scary but good information. Helpful for anyone to help understand their own health.
December 31, 2020
Lecture series on the history and science of epidemiology. There is an abundance of good content but it needs to be updated with Covid-19 information.
March 23, 2021
3.5 stars
June 22, 2021
Can't say that we learned a lot of the details but we certainly have got a glimpse of the infectious diseases' world from the scientific perspective. Fairly accessible for laymen like us.
February 16, 2022
LOVED IT!
Books like this should be mandatory reading for everyone.
Books like this should be mandatory reading for everyone.
March 14, 2022
pre-covid but helpful information
August 17, 2022
What a great overview of infectious diseases from both a historical and a present-day view. I enjoyed this very much.
January 22, 2023
Feels a bit incomplete in a post-covid world.
April 28, 2023
Great course with a lot of information. I learned a lot of new things about different diseases.
December 23, 2023
Really nice informative listen!
April 15, 2024
An excellent read if you don't mind clinical journals. I read it via-audible and it made the dry parts go more smoothly.
September 17, 2024
Thorough detail, but I had many stop breaks because felt like "visiting" each disease...gross factor as reading.
December 22, 2024
lots of information i already knew, but a good introduction on the topic.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews