"This book examines the formation of scientific knowledge about the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and shows the broader cultural assumptions on which this knowledge is grounded. Alex Preda highlights the metaphors, narratives, and classifications that framed scientific hypotheses about the nature of the infectious agent and its means of transmission and compares these arguments with those used in the scientific literature about SARS. Through detailed rhetorical analysis of biomedical publications, the author shows how scientific knowledge about epidemics is shaped by cultural narratives and categories of social thought."--Jacket.