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Emerging Infections in Asia War and Disease: Biomedical Research on Malaria in the Twentieth Century

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Emerging Infections in Asia War and Disease: Biomedical Research on Malaria in the Twentieth Century BOOKS AND MEDIA Emerging Infections Emerging Infections in Asia also The author, Leo B. Slater, makes good misses an opportunity to pull together use of his expertise as a historian of in Asia the diverse topics and experiences dis- biomedical science and technology. Yichen Lu, Myron Essex, cussed to provide new insights into the He provides a meticulous reconstruc- Bryan Roberts, editors emergence of infectious diseases and tion of the manner in which the scien- into responses to the constantly shift- tific community, in the midst of World Springer, New York, NY, USA, 2008 ing challenge of emerging infections. War II, established an antimalarial ISBN: 978-0-387-75721-6 Recognizing this drawback, the editors program, which was to biomedical Pages: 250; Price: US $89.95 say in their preface, “We hope that our research what the Manhattan Project Emerging Infections in Asia com- book can help readers make their own was to the physical sciences. At a time prises a selection of scientific and his- conclusions and ask more questions.” when industrialized nations are in- torical review chapters on a variety of Approached in this context, the book volved in the effort to find solutions to infectious diseases and includes con- provides an account of the diversity the ongoing global health catastrophe tributors from diverse locations rang- and challenges of emerging infectious that malaria is today, this volume is a ing from Saudi Arabia to Australia. The diseases in Asia and some informative timely and valuable contribution. book arose from the editors’ experience historical reviews that will be of inter- Malaria’s effects have long been with the emerging infections described est to students exploring this fascinat- at the center of colonial expansion and from their professional associa- ing topic. and war. The disease became a fo- tions with the other contributors. The cus of research in the late nineteenth book is divided into 3 disease-specific Peter Horby century. France and Great Britain had sections that focus on avian influenza, Author affiliation: Oxford University Clinical expanded their colonies into areas of severe acute respiratory syndrome Research Unit, Hanoi, Vietnam the world where malaria was the most (SARS), and HIV/AIDS, respectively; DOI: 10.3201/eid1507.090450 severe and debilitating of the parasitic a fourth section contains short reviews tropical diseases—a factor that limited of other infections. Because of the rel- Address for correspondence: Peter Horby, the colonial governments’ exploitation atively small size of the book for such Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, of natural resources. Malariologic re- a broad topic (250 pages), each section National Institute of Infectious and Tropical search thrived in these countries and covers only a few specific topics for Diseases, 78 Giai Phong St, Hanoi 000000, in Italy, where the disease was not each selected disease. Vietnam; email: [email protected] a colonial problem but an endemic The book contains some well- scourge and overwhelming obstacle to written reviews and valuable narra- development, just as it is in many de- tive histories that are important to veloping countries today. From 1880 document (e.g., the 2003 SARS out- through 1898 research carried out by breaks in Singapore and Taiwan). such prominent scientists as Charles- The chapters on SARS in animals Louis-Alphonse Laveran, Ronald and emerging paramyxoviruses are Ross, Angelo Celli, Ettore Marchia- particularly interesting, and the book War and Disease: fava, and Giovanni Battista Grassi includes topics (e.g., Escherichia coli Biomedical led to the discovery of the malaria and Staphylococcus aureus) that are Research on transmission cycle. The neurologist, often overshadowed by more glam- Camillo Golgi, who shared the 1906 orous emerging infections. However, Malaria in the Nobel Prize for his work on the struc- it is disappointing in that the first 2 Twentieth Century ture of the nervous system, studied chapters contradict one another on the the reproductive cycle of the parasite occurrence of person-to-person trans- Leo B. Slater (Plasmodium spp.) and elucidated mission of influenza virus A (H5N1), Rutgers University Press, the synchronicity between the symp- and the chapter on SARS in China Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2009 toms of recurrent chills and fever and could have been improved with more ISBN: 978-0-8135-4438-0 the rupture and release of merozoites rigorous editing. Most chapters appear Pages: 272, Price US $45.95 into the blood. These findings offered to have been written around 2006, and War and Disease is a fascinating an explanation for the effectiveness although they provide good snapshots historical account of the discovery of of treatment with quinine, which had of the state of knowledge at that time, drugs effective against malaria, one been used empirically as a generic readers will need to look elsewhere for of the great scourges of humankind. febrifuge since the 17th century. The more recent developments. alkaloid remained the only effective Emerging Infectious Diseases • www.cdc.gov/eid • Vol. 15, No. 7, July 2009 1153 .
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