| View Larger Image | Quinine: Malaria and the Quest for a Cure That Changed the World | Paperbackby Fiammetta Rocco (Author)
| List Price: | $13.95 | |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Harper Perennial | | Page Count: | 384 Pages | | Publication Date: | September 01, 2004 | | Sales Rank: | 853,975rd |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Quinine: The Jesuits discovered it. The Protestants feared it. The British vied with the Dutch for it, and the Nazis seized it. Because of quinine, medicine, warfare, and exploration were changed forever. For more than one thousand years, there was no cure for malaria. In 1623, after ten cardinals and hundreds of their attendants died in Rome while electing Urban VII the new pope, he announced that a cure must be found. He encouraged Jesuit priests establishing new missions in Asia and in South America to learn everything they could about how the local people treated the disease, and in 1631, an apothecarist in Peru named Agostino Salumbrino dispatched a new miracle to Rome. The cure was quinine, an alkaloid made from the bitter red bark of the cinchona tree. From the quest of the Englishmen who smuggled cinchona seeds out of South America to the way in which quinine opened the door to Western imperial adventure in Asia, Africa, and beyond, and to malaria's effects even today, award-winning author Fiammetta Rocco deftly chronicles the story of this historically ravenous disease. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 9 reviews)
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A well-crafted, beautifully written book by John J. Gaudet (USA)  5 Stars
October 24, 2009
Books about things that "change the world," are still popular and relevant to the non-fiction reader. A classic example is Fiammetta Rocco's, Quinine: Malaria and the Quest for a Cure That Changed the World (Harper Collins, 2003), a book that traces the history of quinine from its discovery in the 17th Century by Jesuit missionaries in Peru to its use by expanding European colonial powers and its role in the development of modern anti-malaria pills. The priests learned of the bark of the cinchona tree, which was used by Andean natives to cure shivering, at a time when malaria, then known as Roman ague or marsh fever, was devastating southern Europe. The Jesuits eagerly began the distribution of the curative bark, which also helped European explorers and missionaries survive the disease as they entered new territories. The interest generated by Rocco's book is due to her delving into the relationship between man and plant and that as she demonstrates so well, a plant substance can be dealt with at a personal level. She also is the great-granddaughter of Phillipe Bunau-Varilla, a soldier and engineer and at one time the Panamanian ambassador to the United States. A genius in the art of lobbyist statecraft, he has been referred to as the "Inventor of Panama," and was called one of the most extraordinary Frenchmen to ever live, and he, like his granddaughter survived malaria, so Rocco knows about malaria and quinine from street level, so to speak. She also has the advantage of being a really good writer and having travelled or lived in many interesting places. Well-crafted, beautifully written, it is book well worth the read.
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Bitter pills by Harry Eagar (Maui) 5 Stars
April 27, 2008
Subtitles about X "that changed the world" are off-putting, because most such books are superficial or narrow-minded, or both. Not "Quinine."
Although Fiammetta Rocco's approach is idiosyncratic, it is thorough. She visited many of the key places, from Peru to the Congo, and she read some of the original documents. Also, she has had malaria herself and comes from a family with an intimate association with the disease, from Panama to her childhood home in Kenya. In the hands of a less skilled writer, her discursive approach would not have worked. Here, it works charmingly.
Not that the story has much charm of its own. Not only is malaria a nasty disease, the men who found the cinchona tree and guessed it would treat the fever and who fought among themselves over religion and profits often, ended up half- to fully mad.
The whole thing is so improbable. Malaria existed only in the Old World, the fever-tree only in the Andes of the New World. The locals drank a powder of the very bitter bark to ease the shakes, which gave the idea to a Jesuit that it might treat the fever in Rome -- at that time, 1630, fever was thought to be a disease, not a symptom.
The intellectual battles over this cure helped to dismantle the belief in Greek medicine, and, much later, the investigation of the disease's transmission also opened up an unexpected area of natural history -- human parasites mediated by insects.
One word that does not appear in "Quinine" is "vaccine." Largish sums of money and very large hopes are being invested in finding a malaria vaccine. There are reasons to think this venture will never succeed. At any event, Rocco ignores this avenue to concentrate on the tried-and-true cure.
She also, thankfully, says not a word about global warming and the expansion of malaria. Malaria is not a tropical disease -- a point she makes repeatedly -- and a warmer world will not extend its reach. It is a disease of poverty, and she includes a world map of malaria's empire in the 21st century that makes the point clear.
Her day job is as a literary editor in London, and she includes a list of novels in which malaria features. It is this sort of personal intrusion that helps raise "Quinine" well above the usual level of techno-historical writing.
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Malaria shows limits of evlution by Zorrito (Ohio, USA)  4 Stars
November 06, 2007
Malaria has always plagued mankind. This gives us extensive history of the malaria parasite's and mankind's evolutionary response to each other. In reviewing this warfare of parasite vs. host in a scientific way, Michael Behe in his "The Edge of Evolution" shows how far evolution can go -- and it isn't very far.
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Nicely Done by Pablo Nerd 4 Stars
July 11, 2007
If you like meanders through history, and the type of big picture "How X changed the world" books, then this is for you. Draws upon the author's family history, and takes us on a 5 century long whirlwind tour. Liked it.
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The Story of the Tree of Life by Mr P R Morgan (BATH, Bath and N E Somerset United Kingdom) 4 Stars
July 21, 2004
Many schoolboys in the developed world may know that malaria is the second largest killer of mankind in human history. (As a brief aside, the largest killer is ....... man!) I came to this book knowing very little else about the tropical disease. Yes, I knew that it was transmitted by mosquito bites, but my knowledge ended shortly after that point. Therefore I will readily admit to learning a great deal from this book ? about disease transmission and treatment in general and malaria in particular, and of the wonderful, quinine-bearing ?Peruvian bark? of the cinchona tree. The subject areas covered are enormous: combining more than 350 years of medicine, discovery, colonial conquests, papal intrigues, botany, and biological research. It whets the appetite, and shows that there is much to look into further.
The huge scope is both an advantage, and a disadvantage; an advantage because it gives the reader a context, but it highlights areas worthy of greater coverage with some parts a little sparse. There is little of the effectiveness of quinine (from the ?miraculous fever tree?), when compared to modern anti-malaria drugs ? the problems of, say Larium, have been well documented elsewhere. However, the author uses her own family background to off-set the story, and the approach is particularly effective. Parts are from her own story (growing up in Africa), whilst other small portions cover that of relatives (her great grandfather worked on building of the Panama Canal, and survived the ravages of both yellow fever, and malaria).
The dedication of early doctors, and plant specialists shines through, although in some sections the numerous individuals entering the story seem part of a list of people, places and dates. The telling of the mosquito life cycle, and the discovery of the effect of the insect is very good, with detail from the works of both Ronald Ross and Patrick Manson in the 1890?s. I did not realise that malaria was hitherto both so geographically extensive, and so important in war. This included both the Napoleonic wars, and the American Civil War. The life expectancy of British soldiers in West Africa in the early 19th century was less that 6 months, and was a calculated waste of life.
An interesting note is the prevalence of malaria in Europe, with the fatal effects of the papal enclave of 1623; a number of the electing cardinals did not return from their Pope-choosing visit to Rome. Malaria was also very evident in the Essex marshes in the late 17th century; immune local men would go to the hills in search of another woman when a wife died in the lower (malaria infested) regions. Some men had 14 or 15 wives, but never more than one at a time. Perhaps that is where the ?Essex girl? jokes started.
My overall feeling is that the book does not quite achieve its aim, chiefly because it is so hugely ambitious. It is however a very good read, and may even entice you to read further on the subject (with ample source material listed by the author). I am left at the end realising that there are still about 3,000,000 deaths each year from malaria, and most of these are preventable, whether that is using the product of the cinchona tree, or by some other means. The story may encourage people to strive for the eradication of the disease. Read it, and judge for yourself.
Peter Morgan (Bath, UK. morganp@supanet.com)
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