|
Looking for a new year bargain? Check out our January Sale with up to 65% off selected books.
|
by Michael D'Antonio |
The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria (Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease) by Randall M. Packard |
The Fever Trail: Malaria, the Mosquito and the Quest for Quinine by Mark Honigsbaum |
by Malaria Consortium |
Humanity's Burden: A Global History of Malaria (Studies in Environment and History) by James L. A. Webb Jr. |
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
81% buy the item featured on this page: The Miraculous Fever-Tree: Malaria, Medicine and the Cure that Changed the World �8.44 |
|
17% buy Mosquito: The Story of Man's Deadliest Foe �6.39 |
|
2% buy The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria (Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease) �15.68 |
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Create your own review
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Miraculous Fever-tree.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Miraculous Fever-Tree: Malaria, Medicine and the Cure that Changed the World (Paperback)
I bought this book last week to give as a birthday present; usually I hold back and borrow a gift book back it has been given. However, I started reading this on the bus on the way home, and found it so fascinating that I just had to finish reading it before it was time to send it on. Ranging from Italy and papal elections through a Napoleonic battle, a failed attempt at building the Panama Canal and the colonisation of America, there are so many interesting and unusual stories that I will be buying another copy of the book to keep. There were a good number of black & white photgraphic illustrations, although for me they didn't add a whole lot to the text. The only problem I found was that the author tended to move back and forward a lot in time, so we might read of something happening in Peru, and then suddenly we have jumped ahead or back by as much as fifty years in time. Apart from that, it was a very informative and enjoyable book, full of memorable anecdotes and easy to read; not at all a bitter dose like the early medicines! It's given a personal dimension by the fact that the author's family lived in Africa for 3 generations, so she has personal experience of the real impact of malaria, and quinine in its treatment.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bugs, bark and battles,
By
This review is from: The Miraculous Fever-Tree: Malaria, Medicine and the Cure that Changed the World (Paperback)
This engaging account sketches the investigation and quest for a cure for the "mal 'aria" of Rome. "Mal 'aria" was once thought to emanate from the "bad air" of swamps and marshes. Rocco, herself a victim of this dread illness, narrates its impact from ancient times into the modern world. When the death of a pope brought 55 cardinals to Rome to replace Gregory XV, 10 of them had contracted malaria within two weeks. Those who survived returning to Sees in European nations spread further a malady already prevalent in many nations as distant as the British Isles and Scandinavia. Even as the papal successor, who was also prostrated with chills and fever, struggled to survive the infection, some of his minions were advocating a likely cure against great skepticism.Jesuit missionaries in the New World discovered Native Americans using a powdered tree bark to treat fevers and "agues". Sending the powder back to Catholic Europe introduced the first therapy for malaria, probably just as these same interlopers were infesting the Western Hemisphere with the parasite. Cinchona powder, diluted in wine to cover its bitterness, verged on the miraculous. As Rocco describes its effect, she also recounts the resistance to the "Jesuit powder" in Protestant Europe, particularly Britain. Lack of enthusiasm, plus military ineptness, led to a malarial onslaught in 1808, when an English attempt to invade Napoleon's empire ended in disaster. Empire, war and malaria remained in close company throughout the 19th Century. British incursions into west Africa were stalled by the infection. At one point the medical records indicated more cases of malaria than there were settlers - due to repeat hospital patients. Even against this severity, progress was being made. It's said "there's always one" and Rocco shows how one dedicated man made an immense difference. On a voyage up the Niger, Baikie imposed a strict daily regimen of quinine dosage. One of his crew was murdered and one drowned - but none were lost to malaria. Returning to the Western Hemisphere, Rocco describes the inept handling of fevers by the in the American Civil War. Vicksburg, she asserts, failed to be taken due to the Union's lack of quinine for its troops investing the city. Even greater disaster awaited the French in their attempt to link the Atlantic and Pacific with a Panama Canal. Instead of treating the workers, the French merely hid the casualty list and hired replacements. Even as late as World War II, battlegrounds in the Pacific highlighted the need for plentiful supplies of quinine. By that time, however, some synthetics had been developed. Malaria, however, is neither easily diagnosed nor treated. Rocco notes that there are several versions of the illness, and many varieties of cinchona. Matching them takes skill. At the end of the 19th Century, malaria had been identified as a parasite, not the effusion of swampy fumes. Rocco describes the labours of British Army doctor Ronald Ross, who laboured under appalling conditions in India. He traced the course of the parasite, in part by dissecting mosquitoes with a razor blade! This new understanding led to more directed treatment, and, ultimately, a Nobel Prize for Ross. Rocco's diagram of the life cycle of the parasite suggests the complexity of the problem of diagnosis and therapy. Rocco concludes with a reminder that malaria identified is not malaria eliminated. It kills millions of children every year and prostrates whole communities. South American forests were denuded by exploiters seeking the bark. The synthetics developed proved a temporary solution since the parasite appears to have evolved resistance to them. Today's chief source of natural quinine is a threatened forest in war-torn central Africa. She describes the travails of a firm struggling to maintain supply. The picture would be encouraging if the firm obtained support from industrial nations. That hasn't been forthcoming. Rocco's opening sentence, "My grandparents had been married for many years when they left Europe for Africa - although not to each other" sets the tone of this book. Her personalised narrative form skips the use of footnotes, but there are Notes on Sources and a Further Reading list. A collection of photos and maps adds reference. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating facts and a great read,
By bluedivemonkey (Wokingham, Berks, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Miraculous Fever-Tree: Malaria, Medicine and the Cure that Changed the World (Paperback)
Currently in Madagascar in the malaria season, I picked this up with interest, but little did I anticipate just how fascinating this book is. The first two chapters are a bit repetitive, but once you're through the Jesuit involvement it's gripping. I stayed up in candle light during a power cut (one of many) to get to the end. Highly recommended to anyone with a passing interest in malaria. Enjoy!!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bugs Drugs and Heroes
A more than proficient medical history that evokes the nature of infectious disease. Somewhat undervalues the value of Artemeter but excellent no the less.
Published on 8 Aug 2003
|
|