Customer Reviews

The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria (Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease)

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I enjoy reading books on diseases, and have read several - on such subjects as smallpox, polio, bubonic plague, and others. I must say, this book really struck me as something different. Instead of simply tracing the history of the disease, the author, the director of the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University, shows how the spread of this disease was linked to trends in agriculture and human living patterns. What struck me as most interesting is that the author convincingly shows that malaria was commonly linked to backward, feudalistic patterns of agriculture. However, when modern, capitalistic forms of agriculture took over, the disease was inevitably pushed back, and in some cases actually pushed right out!

Overall, I found this to be a fascinating and very convincing book. The author does an excellent job of showing how the various malaria viruses function, how they are transmitted, and how they are affected by how people live. This is a great book, one that is sure to interest anyone who is interested in human diseases - such as me! I give this book my highest recommendations!

Once upon a time there was a mosquito. And this mosquito carried something with her and gave it to everyone she met. Men in peculiar outfits sprayed all over the land, and the mosquito was banished, in that land at least.

This is the story of malaria. The story that I've heard.

But the actual story of Malaria is a lot more complex. Who would have, for instance, expected a history on a supposed tropical disease to begin with a study of a city in Northern Russia? The Making of a Tropical Disease does just that.

Honestly, this isn't always a fun book to read. Some books are very good about inspiration and motivation and glide along in presenting the chosen perspective. This isn't about inspiration or motivation. It is more ambitious. There are times in which it slows down and gets into details and spends a long time one what might seem a minor point. But, this negative isn't really a criticism. These seemingly minor points are in fact important, and it is the tendency to gloss over such points that undermine so many attempts to respond.

This certainly is a well written book. Randall Packard is a very good writer, and even with my above comment I must add he does a wonderful job of making personal connection. In his journey through the history of where malaria spread he does not only relate facts and figures. He tells a story, and in telling that story has written a very, very solid history.

But more than a history The Making of a Tropical Disease is also really a book on global policy. Packard does not hide this fact. He is making the point that malaria is not simply a story about random mosquitoes who live in unfortunate places. Rather, malaria is a disease that responds to human interaction, and throughout history there is a direct correlation between policy, politics, land use, economics and the occurrence of malaria. Humans interact with this world, and this interaction is not neutral but rather creates changes. These changes can bring open the door to ill effects.

This is not simply asserted and then policies recommended that fit some pre-conceived political bias. Rather, Packard is very scientific and very good in his history, laying out clearly the practices and results that led to malaria in certain regions. He respects the use of sources and when making a leap in interpretation or dealing with a situation in which clear records might be sketchy he admits this. His interpretation of data, however, seems solid even when he must depend on inference.

Packard is laying an absolutely solid foundation to a holistic policy in regards to malaria, and more than malaria. In a way this is a very post-modern book. The pre-moderns suffered from nature. The moderns sought to conquer nature, overwhelming it. The mass application of DDT resulted. Packard builds a middle ground, arguing that we should neither be victims but nor should we deny our own impact. Instead, by understanding nature, malaria and mosquitoes and land and water and humanity, we can develop intentional policies that that reflect the unintentional answers to past malaria outbreaks.

This really is an extraordinary book. For those who are interested in diseases it makes for an interesting read. For those who are interested in global politics and policies it pushes beyond the usual responses and builds a solid case for real, lasting and healthy actions that can literally save lives and entire regions from decay.

My perspective on malaria was at the same time begun and provoked, leading me to see so much of global realities with a new understanding. Very few books can be considered transformational, but Packard really did transform my thinking.

This should be a required book for anyone involved in global studies.

Following the death of Pope Gregory XV in 1623 from what we now know as malaria, the College of Cardinals convened to elect a new pope. Six of their numbers and forty attendants succumbed to the same illness, which was attributed to "bad air" (mala aria in medieval Italian).

Malaria is a parasitic disease, spread by anopheles mosquitoes. Malaria is a tropical disease, but outbreaks can occur almost anywhere in the world. Successful parasites do not kill their hosts, which is why malaria has a relatively low mortality rate. Malaria still manages to kill one to three million humans each year, with a total infection rate of 400 to 800 million. Most of those infected suffer from recurrent fevers and chills, with the disease striking down the elderly, newborn and others with weak or compromised immune systems.

This history of malaria should serve as a cautionary tale for most of us. Malarial outbreaks can be controlled by never eliminated. When public health systems break down malaria may follow. Outbreaks in Archangel during the Russian Revolution and Civil War, and in contemporary Palm Beach County offer testimony to the opportunistic nature of this infection.

This account is sobering and informative.

Dr. Randall M. Packard (Ph.D. not M.D.) did a vast amount of research to provide the reader with a daunting scenario - that malaria is a disease on the rise within the world and worse than that it has returned with a vengeance! The author writes an authoritative and masterful book capturing a great deal of information although he modeslty adds "a short history of malaria" on the title page of his book. The fact is, malaria is a *global* disease which although confined *mostly* to the tropics, has also developed elsewhere in northern climates when the conditions are right. The author captures the reader's attention from the first chapter by providing three global narratives which illustrate the complex factors involved in why malaria persists as a worldwide menacing disease. The first example illustrates how changing agricultural and economic factors in Archangel, a northern port city of Russia, about 125 miles from the Arctic Circle, in the 1920s, created the conditions for an unlikely tropical disease to strike a population not considered at risk. Due to the Russian Revolution, farming techniques changed with a vast decrease in production. There were meager food reserves and live stock was scarce. The Bolsheviks confiscated produce or destroyed much of the previous harvest and animals. Factories closed, shipping was halted and famine arose. First there was a drought followed by a flood. The conditions were ripe for the local species of anopheles mosquito to breed. A Western blockade of shipping prevented the poverty stricken starving people from obtaining quinine, the only medicine known to be effective against malaria. A local epidemic arose which was part of a larger regional epidimic hitting Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Volga Regions. The second example of an epidemic occurred in the 19th century when the British changed the flow of a river in Bengal for rice production. Dams were created for irrigation but they also caused water stagnation which previously was washed or flushed out. The breeding grounds for the local anopheles mosquito arose and malaria became an epidemic in Bengal. Soil eroded due to lack of silt deposits and the land was abandoned by local farmers which resulted in further deterioration and increased the spread of malaria ... Lastly, in 2003 in Palm Beach, Florida there were eight cases of malaria diagnosed. Palm Beach county had a large number of drainage ditches and canals, prime areas for the Anopheles Quadrimaculatus mosquito to breed. The Center for Disease Control speculates that a migrant worker from Central America or South America may have entered the area to work who was a carrier of malaria ... In other words, even affluent areas are not exempt from developing this potentially deadly disease.

From this book the reader learns that several criteria must be met for malaria to arise within a population. These are: first a species of the Anopheles mosquito must be present to breed within stagnant waters. Next the mosquito must inject its sporozoites into the bloodstream of an animal or human. After this, the complex life cycle of the malaria parasite continues and the population develops symptoms of the disease which spreads most easily among the malnourished and poor, who are more likely to go untreated, suffer the most and often die. It is of paramount importance to clean areas where dirty water stagnates and it is important to irradicate the anopheles mosquite species within the region ...

As the author so clearly points out, when there was a world wide health initiative to rid the disease of malaria from among all nations, rich and poor alike, the disease went on a decline. When the United Nations World Health Organization created health initiatives and used DDT to spray and kill mosquitoes and made quinine or its derivatives available (at low cost) to at risk populations, the disease declined world wide. Also, making insecticide treated bed netting available in Africa has reduced the spread of this disease and improved the lives of these high-risk populations. The author clearly points out how poverty is a high risk factor for getting malaria ... whether one lives in Italy at the turn of the century, in Brazil in the recent, past and current times, or in Thailand where changing economic conditions force farmers to become gemstone miners, smugglers or drug runners and place them at much higher risk. It is quite evident, malaria as a disease is on the rise throughout the world. While there is much hope to save more lives with the development of a vaccine, unfortunately a vaccine can not stop the parasite's ability to eventually develop immunity to new discoveries and treatments. Overall, this is a most excellent book which sounds like it could be dry and boring but surprisingly turns out to be a very enjoyable reading experience. Note: anyone interested in this topic should refer to the July 2007 National Geographic Magazine (Vol. 21. No. 1) article entitled "MALARIA: Stopping a Global Killer." Erika Borsos [pepper flower]

When I ordered this book I wasn't really sure that I would like it. How can you know if you are going to like a book about Malaria it's a terrible disease. After having read it I'm glad I ordered it. It's a fascinating story detailing the history and spread of Malaria as it spread across the globe. The book details how Malaria is born down to the cell. I found this to be a very interesting read. Quite an accomplishment since I don't ordinarily care for science books

The book is filled with statistical information and old maps to help the reader get into the time period. It's very well detailed in it's explanation of Malaria. The book talks about the realities.

The book is very well written, easy to read and very informative. There is a wealth of information here and it's very well laid out and contextually well thought out. Reading this book was really an educational and enlightening experience for me. There are many interesting chapters in the book but probably my favorite is the making of a vector borne disease, it talks ab out the epidemiology of Malaria and it relationships with parasites.

If your at all interested in the book you should go ahead and get it.

Disease is social, linguistic, and biological. Modern disease is bureaucratic. Malaria has a long history. It is caused by a parasite, transmitted through the bite of a mosquito.

This is an excellent summary of malaria control efforts. Theories of the cause of the prevalence of the condition are presented. Malaria has arisen where the distribution and flow of water has changed.

There are four kinds of human malaria. Pope Gregory XV died of malaria. The spread of malaria to Europe and America was tied to hcanging agricultural practices. Malaria parasites traveled to America by ship.

In the eighteenth century malaria in South Carolina was a significant health problem. Changes in rice production may have caused a decline in malaria mortality by the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Subsequently malaria spread to the Ohio River Valley, the Illinois River Valley, and the Mississippi River Valley.

After 1850 there was retreat of the disease in Europe and America. Commercial farming and better drainage produced change. Quinine treatment alleviated distress. By the first half of the twentieth century malaria had become a tropical disease.

Human populations are subject to economic and social conditions creating opportunities to control malaria epidemics. Use of avoidance and medications reduce the impact of malaria. Public health practices aim at improving environments. Vector control programs of the early twentieth century sought to eliminate breeding sites.

Midcentury, broad-based efforts at malaria control were abandoned as DDT came into use. Eradication efforts ran into the fact of pesticide resistance. Another development was antimalarial drug resistance. In 1969 the WHO eradication campaign was terminated.

In the seventies and eighties malaria rebounded where eradication had not been achieved. Malaria and economic development are intertwined. Malaria policy has ignored the human ecology of malaria. Underlying ecological forces must be addressed to avoid having to provide protection against malaria indefinitely.

While in college in the seventies, I spent a semester in a course which was devoted primarily to malaria. As an environmental science major, I wondered why we spent sooo much time on malaria and so little on other mosquito borne diseases. The primary reason was that malaria has the ability to live in almost any place in the world, given the proper ecological conditions. And, in many cases, it is humans who create the ecological niche for the introduction of the disease.

Reading this book was like traveling down a long lost road. Much of what it contained I had learned way back when, however it did offer a new slant on the disease and some new information. What was amazing about the disease then is still amazing today, and I still am in awe of how this disease remains so resilient to attempts to eradicate it.

This book is a wonderful look at a terrible disease, and anyone who has an interest in the disease process is sure to learn something. Be forewarned, however, that this book is not an easy read and will challenge the mind of most readers.

No respecter of persons, malaria has killed millions of people, from Popes and Roman Emperors to the poorest of the poor, and it still kills millions each year, not to mention the multitudes enfeebled and incapacitated. Byron, Dante, Alexander the Great and Oliver Cromwell were all probably slain by it. Malaria has decided the outcome of wars. Packard's writing on malaria, twenty years in the making, was inspired by first-hand experience, a bite from an infected mosquito nearly 40 years ago. He traces the disease from its beginnings in tropical Africa to its move into Europe. Malaria plagued Italy for centuries, and was not conquered until the inter-World War period when Mussolini's government largely eradicated it from the Roman Campagna and Pontine marshes. Its effects in England are especially well documented from the late Middle Ages; peaking in the 17th century, it was not eradicated until the 19th century. The economic and agricultural conditions that favoured it are examined, as is the role of transport in taking malaria-bearing mosquitoes to new parts of the globe. The hopes raised by medications and DDT are documented, as is the development of resistant strains, and the story is brought up to date with the way in which new social and economic factors cause fresh outbreaks world-wide, and the hopes raised by the Rolling Back Malaria campaign. The book has an excellent bibliography, and can be thoroughly recommended as a one-volume survey.

My background is in microbiology, and I've been interested in malaria as both an infectious agent and the illness it causes. This book gives a great overview of the history of the disease as well as its future implications. The language is readable for the layperson without being too "dumbed-down". Great diagrams, maps and illustrations aid the presentation.
Recommended!

In this work, second in a series produced by Johns Hopkins University Press, "Biographies of Disease", the author, who serves as co-editor for the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, published by Johns Hopkins, strongly advances his developed theory as to the cardinal reason that malaria, in its several forms, is an ongoing and often principal public health issue for a significantly large percentage of the world's peoples, in particular those living under vestigial hygeinic conditions, while in the absence of adequate medical and nursing care. While he correctly avers that available data is incomplete, Packard describes historic events depicting spread of the disease from Africa into the European and Asian land masses, additionally entering the eastern portion of the United States, as pictorially illustrated with nicely reproduced maps. Nonetheless, he soon returns his cynosure to sub-Saharan Africa, wherein the dreaded disease kills, according to the World Health Organization, from one to three million people each year, from among the 300 to 500 million whom are originally infected, with most of the victims being children under the age of five years. He gives the reader as well a graphic background of malaria's extension into a number of economically deprived locations, including coastal El Salvador, Pakistan, and Punjab. In an epidemiological outline of the disease, the author defines the four chief extant types, and explains why efforts at eradication have lapsed, due to a waning sufficiency of treatment by therapeutics for the victims, as well as increasingly ineffective utilization of pesticides for anopheline mosquitoes. Packard believes that since stricken populations within temperate climatic zones were delivered from the ravagement of human life caused by malaria, it should then be possible to achieve an identical level of medical accomplishment in tropical and subtropical regions that are notably underdeveloped, and he concludes with recommendations for procedures that might be adopted as disease control methods while at the same time placing the blame for this ongoing blight upon such wide-ranging factors as warfare, globalization, shifts in weather patterns, decay of public health systems, alteration of water flow distribution, and prevalence of capital-based land development processes. Packard is simply affirming the means by which a combination of natural, social, and cultural components have combined to create a pragmatically insoluble plight. Perhaps the most engaging portions of the work are those that portray malaria's complexity within settings that are composed of historic, social and economic forces. A major hypothesis of this brief historical account asserts that malaria has been harnessed in a coevolutionary manner with humanity at large, despite being predated by the anopheles mosquito itself (Packard remarks upon a 30 million years old fossil remnant of the baleful insect). This well-constructed and ably written work includes 34pp. of quite detailed chapter notes along with a well-organized index.