This book presents an authoritative account of the prion diseases for the non-specialist. It deals with the history of scrapie in sheep, the spread of kuru through cannibalism in Papua New Guinea, BSE, which has killed 170,000 cattle in the UK, and the question of whether the new variant form of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (CJD) results from eating BSE-infected meat. All aspects of the diseases are covered, including genetics, clinical aspects, laboratory research, epidemiology, and field studies. Acessibly written by authors who are leading researchers in the field, it should provide a scientifically accurate yet readable account of these topical diseases. This book will be of interest to general readers, students, and scientists who are concerned about or affected by prion diseases, and who wish to understand more about them. It will also be of relevance to many health workers, medical students, GPs, teachers/lecturers, and undergraduates in biology/health sciences.