Customer Reviews
Bugs, bark and battles - By: Stephen A. Haines, 14 Feb 2006 
This engaging account sketches the investigation & quest for a cure for the "mal 'aria" of Rome. "Mal 'aria" was once thought to emanate from the "bad air" of swamps & 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 Seesin European nations spread further a malady already prevalentin many nations as distant as the British Isles & Scandinavia. Even as the papal successor, who was also prostrated with chills & fever, struggled to survive the infection, some of his minions were advocating a likely cure against great skepticism.
Jesuit missionariesin the New World discovered Native Americans using a powdered tree bark to treat fevers & "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, dilutedin 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 onslaughtin 1808, when an English attempt to invade Napoleon's empire endedin disaster.
Empire, war & malaria remainedin 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" & 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 & one drowned - but none were lost to malaria.
Returning to the Western Hemisphere, Rocco describes the inept handling of fevers by thein 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 Frenchin their attempt to link the Atlantic & Pacific with a Panama Canal. Instead of treating the workers, the French merely hid the casualty list & hired replacements. Even as late as World War II, battlegroundsin 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, & 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 conditionsin 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 & therapy.
Rocco concludes with a reminder that malaria identified is not malaria eliminated. It kills millions of children every year & 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 forestin 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 & a Further Reading list. A collection of photos & maps adds reference. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
The Miraculous Fever-tree. - By: , 27 May 2004 I bought this book last week to give as a birthday present; usually I hold back & borrow a gift book back it has been given. However, I started reading this on the bus on the way home, & found it so fascinating that I just had to finish reading it before it was time to send it on. Ranging from Italy & papal elections through a Napoleonic battle, a failed attempt at building the Panama Canal & the colonisation of America, there are so many interesting & 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 & forward a lotin time, so we might read of something happeningin Peru, & then suddenly we have jumped ahead or back by as much as fifty yearsin time. Apart from that, it was a very informative & enjoyable book, full of memorable anecdotes & 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 livedin Africa for 3 generations, so she has personal experience of the real impact of malaria, & quininein its treatment.
Bugs Drugs and Heroes - By: , 08 Aug 2003 A more than proficient medical history that evokes the nature of infectious disease. Somewhat undervalues the value of Artemeter but excellent no the less.
