The book by evolutionary biologist Matthias Glaubrecht, which is well worth reading, describes the biological basis of pandemics, the search for the origin of the virus that triggered the current corona pandemic, and the spread of epidemics that have repeatedly afflicted mankind since 430 BC. The somewhat unusual title alludes to the headline of a newspaper article: Pangolins are pangolins whose role as intermediate hosts for corona viruses has been discussed. The headline is actually unnecessarily anthropomorphic, because this is not a thriller, but a non-fiction book – the Pangolin certainly didn’t have “revenge” in mind!
The work consists of three large parts that deal with the search for the origin of the corona pandemic, the spread of previous epidemics and an outlook on our options for action. The extensive text of 536 pages is followed by a glossary, a chronology of the most important epidemics, detailed notes on the text and a bibliography and index. In this way, the reader has the opportunity to obtain detailed information and an overview of the relevant current scientific literature.
Where the plague came from is not as easy to answer as it seems at first glance. Corona viruses have existed for a long time and have repeatedly been the subject of scientific investigations. Glaubrecht describes how viruses were detected in various animal species, such as bats and other wild animals. The leap of pathogens from animals to humans is referred to as zoonosis – but it does not seem sensible to concentrate on a single cause of such infections: there were already three genetically different strains of virus at the beginning of the corona pandemic. And viruses continue to evolve, in line with the well-established goal of evolutionary biology to spread beneficial genetic traits throughout a population. The fact that combating the pandemic is so difficult is also due to the fact that information from science is often ignored for a long time, because, as the author writes, “the virus … is always one step ahead of human behavior, the implementation of knowledge through politics even by a long way«. The depiction of the spread of the corona virus is rich in detail and also addresses the question of a laboratory accident in Wuhan. This seems very unlikely to Glaubrecht, because “a pandemic has never been triggered by laboratory manipulation of viruses”.