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OverviewWhy, Robert S. Desowitz asks, has biotechnical research on malaria produced so little when it had promised so much? An expert in tropical diseases, Desowtiz searches for answers in this provocative book. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Robert S. DesowitzPublisher: WW Norton & Co Imprint: WW Norton & Co Edition: New edition Dimensions: Width: 14.00cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 20.80cm Weight: 0.373kg ISBN: 9780393310085ISBN 10: 0393310086 Pages: 290 Publication Date: 18 August 1993 Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , General , Undergraduate Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print  This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of ContentsReviewsLike a novelist, [Desowitz] draws the reader into the human tragedy of disease. . . . Rich in historical-medical detective stories. --Betty Ann Kevles Like a novelist, [Desowitz] draws the reader into the human tragedy of disease. . . . Rich in historical-medical detective stories. -- Betty Ann Kevles Just as it was not necessary to be an astrophysicist to feel the grandeur and scope of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, it is not necessary to be a parasitologist or specialist in tropical medicine to relate to the drama, tragedy and even romance of Desowitz's fascinating and provocative story. . . . Interesting and important. Tropical medicine is outside the mainstream of biomedical research in America. Yet, worldwide, malaria continues to ravage millions, causing between one and two million deaths every year. And malaria at least is a household word. Not so kala azar, Mogul words that mean black sickness, a parasitic disease of the liver and spleen that causes fever and anemia and commonly proceeds to wasting, dysentery, and death. The record suggests that kala azar was a new disease a century ago - a sort of 19th-century AIDS that hit southeast India in epidemic proportions. It now occurs across China, Russian Turkestan, Mediterranean Europe, North Africa, and the coast of Brazil, with little in the way of treatment except for derivatives of the heavy metal antimony - in short supply and too expensive for the poor. Here, as in his other popular books (The Thorn in the Starfish, 1987, etc.), our tropical medicine man on the scene tells a compelling tale that is half epidemiological sleuthing, half an account of where we stand today. As always, too, there is a mixture of wordplay, compassion, and anger to suit the unfolding of tales that have comic as well as tragic turns and events that reveal heroism but also stupidity and cupidity. In the case of kala azar, we learn that the parasite is leishmania donovani - a protozoan transmitted by the bite of a sandfly. Prevention is plagued by politics as well as by lack of funding and ideas. Desowitz summarizes the details of the better - known malaria story, ending with a sizzling indictment of the Agency for International Development, complete with corrupt officials and venal researchers who pocketed funds awarded for vaccine research. Sad tales, these, that leave the reader with more respect for nature, less for man. (Kirkus Reviews) Author InformationRobert S. Desowitz (1926—2008) was a leading epidemiologist and the author of New Guinea Tape Worms and Jewish Grandmothers and The Malaria Capers, among other books. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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