Prerequisites: none

Description: This lecture course for nonscience majors will deal with the natural history of infectious diseases and how plagues have influenced the course of human history. It will cover the biology, pathology, epidemiology, and immunology of viruses, bacteria, and protozoan parasites causing smallpox, yellow fever, influenza, AIDS, syphilis, bubonic plague, tuberculosis, leprosy, malaria, and African sleeping sickness. The role of scientific inquiry in the conquest of human disease will be emphasized.