Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe

Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe by Carl Zimmer

Carl Zimmer’s book Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe is an always informative, often fascinating, and at times worrying look at humanity’s long speculation and exploration of what is in the air around us and what we breathe besides the life-giving oxygen we need.

Zimmer covers a lot of ground here, going back to ancient civilizations and the idea of “miasma” or “bad air,” an explanation of sickness that held sway for centuries until being rivaled in the 14^th century by the opposing idea that “diseases such as plague were caused by contagion — a poison that grew inside the sick and then spread to the healthy.” A speculative theory strengthened by the invention of the microscope in the 17^th century, which enabled people to see microorganisms. “Contagionists,” who argued these organisms were the cause of disease, started to gain more credence with Louis Pasteur’s development of germ theory and British surgeon Joseph Lister’s use of carbolic acid to kill the theorized germs, greatly reducing post-surgical deaths due to infection/gangrene, as well as John Snow’s famous tracing of a cholera outbreak to a single water pump (removal of the pump handle led to the end of the outbreak). Even as miasmatists continued to argue against germ-caused disease, a group known as “sanitarians”, led by Florence Nightingale, took up the cause of trying to decrease germs in the environment and air.

Final proof of germs as the cause of disease came in the last 1800s when Robert Koch was able to isolate the microorganism behind anthrax and use it to infect mice, then did the same for tuberculosis. With germs firmly established, scientists began looking at transmission and also their presence in the air, even enlisting help from Charles Lindbergh to collect air samples during his many flights.

Carl Zimmer

Thus the new science of aerobiology began in the 20^th century, headlined particularly by plant pathologist Fred Meier and the husband-wife team of William and Mildred Wells, who despite their progress were attacked by other scientists for their conclusions and recommendations (the Wellses were also not helped by their notorious difficulty to work with or administer). The field fell into disrepute for a while, but the potential use of chemical and biological weapons, as well as the increased urbanization and population density that led to easier transmission of disease, brought it back. The rise of SARs and COVID have, as Zimmer does an excellent job of detailing, lent the field even more importance even as (again, vividly shown by Zimmer) the scientists themselves often disagreed with each other, such as over how far Covid germs would travel in a sneeze or cough for instance (or even, early on, if Covid was even airborne at all).

All of this is conveyed thoroughly, clearly, and often vividly, as with the details of Lindbergh’s flights, germ warfare experiments in America, Germany, Russia, and Japan, the highly detailed photographs depicting how far sneezes and coughs travel (you really don’t want to know), and more. Honestly, I didn’t feel I needed all the details Zimmer covers (mostly regarding the relationships between people but sometimes in other areas as well), but I certainly can’t fault him for his commitment to thoroughness. He has a good eye for the fascinating detail whether it’s visual, an engineering spec, and the sort of detail that perfectly captures an individual’s personality.

Air-borne is an excellent bit of science history that brings us up right up to today and cautions us about avoiding the mistakes of the past if we want to do a better job than we have against the diseases that plague us.