This book tells the story of one of the deadliest infectious diseases known: Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Originating as an emerging infectious disease on the western frontier that killed up to 90 percent of infected persons, Rocky Mountain spotted fever is caused by a curious organism, Rickettsia rickettsii. "Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever" explains what a rickettsia is, how it lives in nature, and how, when, and where ticks transmit the bacteria to humans. The features of the disease and its potential cures are described in language accessible to persons with little scientific background,...

- The Papin sisters -- two maids who shocked France by savagely butchering their mistress and her daughter. - Violette Nozieres -- arrested for poisoning her mother and father. The serial murderer Eugen Weidmann -- the last man to be publicly guillotined in France. These sordid tales, widely disseminated by the French press in articles known as the faits divers, have inflamed the imaginations of French writers and intellectuals from Zola and de Beauvoir to Barthes, Foucault and Lacan. They are the basis for some of the most enduring characters in French fiction -- Julian Sorel, Emma Bovary...