Sneeze

LoveReading Says

Rooted in a century’s worth of research into the common cold, and informed by of-the-moment science, Dr David Miles’ Sneeze realises the unlikely achievement of rendering what’s typically regarded as an irritating everyday occurrence incredibly fascinating, with the bonus of sharing invaluable practical advice on how to avoid, fight and curtail the pervasiveness of the common cold. 

We all know the feeling: “There’s something in your throat. Somewhere around the back of your palate, between your tonsils… It’s not painful, but your heart sinks because you know what comes next. By tomorrow, your throat will be burning and over the next two or three days, that irritation will have found its way up into your nose.

You have a cold”. True to the book’s personal style, Miles shares the fact that he, too, a preeminent immunologist, once regarded colds as “annoyances to be sniffled through with the help of medications from the local pharmacy, not research subjects worth pursuing”. All that changed when his “own lymphocytes adjusted my attitude to colds by trying to kill me” (they mutated into a type of cancer).

In this context, Sneeze sees Miles shares exhaustive detail how colds work, how colds are transmitted, what makes someone susceptible to colds, the history of the discovery of cold viruses, including influenza and coronaviruses, and what we can do about colds, with the section that shares experts’ remedies likely to be of particular interest.

In addition to providing exhaustive medical information, Sneeze’s 360 approach means it also covers the cost of colds on society (for example, in 2023, colds were estimated to cost the British economy around £44 billion). I especially enjoyed the chapter devoted to examining “When did the first person catch the first cold?” Fascinatingly, it seems the answer is found in the two “Yana boys” whose bodies had been frozen in northern Siberia for between 30,000 and 35,000 years.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real.
More reviews by Joanne Owen

About Sneeze

A fascinating history of our most common illness, written by a leading immunologist.The tickle in the back of your throat; the cough that won't let you sleep; the stuffy nose and the constant need to sneeze - these symptoms are sadly all too familiar. Having a cold is so common in our day-to-day experience that we tend to see it as an inevitable inconvenience, rather than an illness that we should do something about.But despite its persistence in our lives, the common cold is still somewhat of a mystery. The cold virus is mostly harmless, arguably man-made and has become a multi-billion-pound burden on our civilisation. For the last 100 years, scientists have been trying to explain what exactly colds are and where they come from - with mixed results.Sneeze is the conclusion to a century's worth of research on colds, starting from the foundational discovery that colds are caused by viruses, up to developments made during the pandemic. This vital book explores the history and science of the common cold, and explains how we as a society become better at avoiding them and fighting them, and, perhaps most ambitiously, the practical steps we can take to stop spreading them.Inside, you will discover:

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