Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D., is the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine, professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases, professor of psychiatry, and director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. His books include the award- winning Quarantine! and When Germs Travel. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Journal of the American Medical Association. A member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, Markel lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan."