The Hidden Zoo Inside You – An illustrated guide to pesky organisms and pandemics

By Kristina Bowers

Information about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic including infection rates, appropriate safety measures, test and vaccine availability or necessity, and even clear messaging on how it continues to affect our lives is becoming more disjointed and harder to find after years of this global health event. The recently published The Hidden Zoo Inside You: An illustrated guide to pesky organisms and pandemics is Dr. Allen Jones’ debut graphic educational text that breaks down complex scientific concepts and misinformation about COVID-19 and many other infectious diseases that have plagued human and animal kind for centuries.

The Hidden Zoo Inside You, from page 2

Hidden Zoo is a nonfiction visual feast that presents a journey through the microscopic world of viruses, amoebas, bacteria, and the relationships and biological processes that help the transfer of these infections. Dr. Jones, a Vancouver, British Columbia Canada based family medicine practitioner who focuses on addiction care, conceived Hidden Zoo during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic out of a desire to explain and counter misinformation about complex scientific concepts in a fun and engaging way for the layperson. A map of the world from chapter 1 shows the difference in geographical scope between endemic, epidemic, and pandemic levels of disease spread. Sompoo, the reader’s guide and companion throughout the text offers definitions, phonetic pronunciation, facts, and jokes. Sompoo tells the reader the correct pronunciation of necrotizing fasciitis and gives the reader a quick fact about fungi in the following excerpts.

The Hidden Zoo Inside You, from page iv:

The Hidden Zoo Inside You, from page 66 and 73

This richly detailed guide contains charts, maps, vocabulary, visual descriptions and relatable comparisons that make the often-complex medical concepts approachable, despite the over 200 pages of material. Illustrated like hand-drawn lecture notes, the cells, bugs, people, body parts, and medical equipment (just to name a few objects in this compendium) are meticulously labelled and connected by arrows, boxes, and flowcharts in a dense but logical manner. The packed but neatly organized layout of the book is comparable to I Spy books, the DK Eyewitness series, or “Draw My Life” style videos in which hand-drawn illustrations fill an ever-expanding canvas. Below is an excerpt showing the physics of droplets and particles through a comparison of the size of inhaler medication, volcanic ash, fungus, and coronavirus-laden droplets entering human lungs. Dr. Jones combines definitions, diagrams, environmental policy and everyday objects (inhaler, spray paint can) to convey complex information to the reader, personalizing the discussion of droplet and particle inhalation by making the reader imagine their own body in this scenario. For example, the volcanic ash enters “Into your lungs” (167).

The Hidden Zoo Inside You, from page 167

Each chapter has a broad focus. The first three chapters cover basic epidemiology and common infections like Ebola and Smallpox, other organisms like bacteria and fungi that invade and exist within the human body, and viruses – the organisms that exist somewhere between the living and the dead. The words “microbe”, “germ”, and “pathogen” all refer to a group of organisms that can infect the human body including bacteria, viruses, fungi, amoebas, prions, and worms (Jones 34). Trillions of microbes live on and in each of our bodies outnumbering our cells 10 to 1 (“NIH Human Microbiome”). The genetic makeup of these microbes is essential to human survival providing, for example, enzymes in our gut that allow us to properly digest food (“NIH Human Microbiome”). All microbes are considered alive except for viruses because they can’t reproduce by themselves (Jones 57). Viruses are not made of cells but are rather mostly genetic code that infect all kingdoms of life (Bacteria, Amoebas, Fungi, Plants, and Animals) to then use these hosts to reproduce (Jones 56; 92-93).

The last three chapters are dedicated to Coronaviruses (including but not limited to SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19), the mechanics of transmission and protection against such viruses, and disaster and pandemic management. Jones explains the 7 different types of coronaviruses that can infect humans along with animal origins, zoonotic transmission, symptoms, prevalence, and treatment of these viruses. The following excerpt from page 140 illustrates the unique features of COVID-19, asymptomatic spread and the spike mutation, that make it so efficient at infecting humans.

The Hidden Zoo Inside You, from page 140

Dr. Jones doesn’t just focus on the impact these microscopic beings have on humans but provides a wholistic look at the impacts of disease on animals and plants as well. For example, the following list shows the range of animals that infect different types of animals including humans.

The Hidden Zoo Inside You, from page 112

This book can be read in any order, and one does not have to follow along with every detail or even chronologically to have an enjoyable reading and learning experience. Dr. Jones uses many navigational features such as a color-coded index (192 – 202), references to other chapters or page numbers, and Sompoo a character that gives tips and commentary on the etymology of words, common misconceptions, and facts to allow the reader to go on their own journey discovering the hidden zoo within them. The zoo metaphor frames the pages packed with illustrations and handwritten text. Our own Steve Irwin-esque guide introduces the “Infection Zoo” in Ch. 2 and we follow Billy and his mother as they journey through the microbial enclosures for bacteria, amoebas, fungi, and animals. Although the text and information are dense, this guide does not feel like a textbook but rather an illustrated and narrated journey through scientific, historical, geographical, and medical topics.

The Hidden Zoo Inside You, from page 58

Anyone who is interested in facts, science, sociology, and processes of epidemiology will find something to like about this book. Written for adult and young adult audiences who are assumed to have no scientific background, Hidden Zoo will appeal, as well, to healthcare and scientific professionals, parents, science educators, and everyone who is living in this ongoing pandemic and looking to understand the mechanisms and sociology behind epidemiology.

Although there are no footnotes or sources in the text, Dr. Jones hosts a 742-page bibliography on his website that sources the vast amount of information in Hidden Zoo.

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Kristina Bowers is a graduate student at The Pennsylvania State University pursuing a dual-title PhD in Rhetoric and Composition and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Kristina’s research focuses on disability theory, user-generated technical communication, rhetoric of health and medicine broadly, and feminist rhetorical methodologies. In their free time, Kristina enjoys hiking, playing board games, and traveling with their wife.