Written as a firsthand recounting, Defoe adds a resonance of truth to his novel by imparting statistical information on the spread of the infectious disease. He carefully details the development of the infection, its rapid spread and the subsequent devastation caused by its passing. Throughout the novel, the reader is provided with grisly accounts of the modern medical practices of the times.

Though Defoe has been criticized repeatedly (both by his contemporaries and subsequent generations), for his overly passionate language, The Journal of the Plague Year provides a unique insight into the perception of infectious disease in the 18th century.

Iron Peter
At the close of the 20th century, it would be impossible to discuss infectious disease for any length of time without confronting the AIDS epidemic. Windows CE device owners have a unique opportunity to read an outstanding work by a contemporary writer who takes a darkly comedic look at the AIDS.

In a book some critics have called "The Animal Farm of the AIDS era", Charles Ortleb takes a comic look at the AIDS establishment and the effect of the HIV-AIDS theory on gay life in the nineties in Iron Peter, a satirical novel.

Peter, a beautiful young man who arrives in New York City fresh out of college, is determined to "assassinate" the AIDS epidemic. In the course of his research efforts in both the library and the real-life of bars, he realizes that the AIDS scientists, the AIDS activists, and the entire AIDS establishment are hooked on a false theory that HIV=AIDS; that theory is leading them nowhere. To make matters worse, the AIDS scientists, in league with the pharmaceutical companies, are prescribing highly toxic drugs (AZT, DDI, etc.) to AIDS patients, thus adding thousands of unnecessary deaths to the epidemic. When Peter meets a renegade heiress whose peak experiences were Woodstock and Watergate, the gay and the (sort of) straight world are united in a crusade to expose this AIDSgate scandal to the world. Published by Electron Press, Inc, Iron Peter is available in Doc format.

Medical references
Few subjects have received the degree of attention in the handheld community as medicine and health have. Several Web sites exist that are entirely devoted to the use of handheld devices in medical practice, and a large number of physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals have created an ever-growing number of health-related documents in Windows CE-compatible formats. The following are but a small sample of this abundance.

For the layperson (i.e. non-physician), many health-related documents exist. For example, a Doc format listing of essential vitamins and minerals, as well as their sources and properties, has been assembled by R. Jones. Jim Thompson created a listing of common hand injuries in a plain text file, and a plain text guide to common pills for pain control was created by J. Leonardelli. Mary Jo Sminkey has created some extremely handy First Aid & CPR references, and these are available in Doc format.