Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria?: Torrid Diseases in a Temperate World [Hardcover]

Robert S. Desowitz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1997 | ISBN-10: 0393040844 | ISBN-13: 978-0393040845 | Edition: 1

An instructive, often humorous, chronicle of how the worms and germs of the tropical world have made and are making their way north. We live in a fool's paradise, comforted, despite all evidence to the contrary, that we are insulated from the scourging microbial and parasitic diseases of the tropics. Yet past and present history reveals that many of the "classic" tropical diseases are, in reality, temperate too yellow fever in Philadelphia, the Ebola virus in Maryland and Virginia, and the Mexican pig tapeworm in Brooklyn. Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria? traces the origin of these extraordinary, but by no means isolated, cases. Did the crew of the Santa Maria bring syphilis (Pinta) back from the New World? Did Charles Darwin suffer a protracted illness and eventually die from the bite of an assassin bug while traveling through Argentina? Writing with enthusiasm and from wide medical experience, Dr. Robert Desowitz is a veritable Sherlock Holmes of parasites and pathogens. Spanning a human history of over 50,000 years, Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria? also looks ahead to the constant dangers of microbial diseases of unprecedented savagery"Doomsday bugs" creeping into the industrialized world.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A fascinating tour through the world of tropical diseases, led by a guide with a lively sense of humor and a keen knowledge of medical history. While most people would prefer to think of tropical parasites and pathogens as inhabitants of some distant world, Desowitz, a specialist in tropical medicine and medical microbiology (The Malaria Capers, 1991), brings them perilously close to home. Malaria he calls ``as American as the heart attack or apple pie,'' and yellow fever once killed one-tenth of Philadelphia's population. It was yellow fever, the author explains, that brought Louisiana into the US, for its high death rate convinced Napoleon that his American holdings were a ``worthless, pestilential sinkhole.'' Of the diseases whose history Desowitz recounts, perhaps the least known is chronic hookworm anemia, a profoundly debilitating illness once epidemic in the American South. In a chapter subtitled ``Kid Rockefeller and the Battling Hookworm,'' Desowitz describes how Rockefeller philanthropy not only transformed the South but led to global anti-hookworm programs. While Desowitz ranges over thousands of years in this chronicle, his concern is the present and the future. In a tale of medical detection reminiscent of Berton Rouch‚, he relates how a group of Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn--who, of course, shun any form of pig's meat--recently became infected with a pig tapeworm from Mexico. His message is clear: The threat of infectious diseases is ever present. Coming ecological-epidemiological shifts may bring some bad times--global warming creates a wonderful world for insects and the diseases they carry--and our present antibiotic agents have already begun to fail us, Desowitz concludes somberly. He urges increased support for all science, for just as threats come from unexpected sources, so do answers. (For the record, Desowitz believes that Pinta, a form of syphilis, was carried back to Europe by Columbus's crew.) A real-life thriller. (First serial to Natural History Magazine) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

A epidemiological history, this book looks at tropical diseases that were able to thrive in temperate North American climates. Occurrences of malaria in New York City in 1993 are enough to make one want more quinine water in those gin and tonics. -- Chicago Sun Times

Like Stephen Jay Gould and Lewis Thomas, Desowitz manages to make the basic principles of his subject immediately comprehensible to the general reader. -- Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

Like a novelist, [Desowitz] draws the reader into the human tragedy of disease. -- Betty Ann Kevles, Los Angeles Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1 edition (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393040844
• ISBN-13: 978-0393040845
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,274,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disjointed but entertaining discussion of disease, August 19, 1997

By 

Karen M. Wahle (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria?: Torrid Diseases in a Temperate World (Hardcover)

WHO GAVE PINTA is a disjointed but entertaining discussion of how several diseases were conquered. The book's disjointedness, however, makes it somewhat difficult to follow and leaves more questions open than it closes. For example, the author introduces yellow fever, degresses to other diseases and microbes, then returns several times to add more to the yellow fever story. It is easy to get confused between microbes, diseases and disease conquerors. Perhaps that's the price of Desowitz' attempt to portray his accounts chronologically rather than by disease or microbe. Desowitz also touches on various diseases' effects on culture, history and future events without exploring any topic in any depth, which is more tantalizing and frustrating than it is enjoyable. I don't think this book is as good as many other recents books of its genre, but is worth the price

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A brief history of scarry diseses, February 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria?: Torrid Diseases in a Temperate World (Hardcover)

I really liked this book. It really introduced to me the history of some of the most scarry diseases of our past and present. This book is very technical with great examples of subject points. Anybody reading it I recommend a big thick dictionary in your lap and a empty stomach.

4.0 out of 5 stars The particulars of parasites, September 12, 2006

By 

James Davison (Nashville, Tennessee United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria?: Torrid Diseases in a Temperate World (Hardcover)

Human parasites have been our close companions throughout evolutionary journey. Their complex life cycles are enough to make anybody squeamish. Hookworm larvae, for example, burrow though the skin of bare feet, and chew their way into a blood vessel. They wash through the heart, and lodge inside the delicate capillaries of the lung. The hookworms then crawl up the airways until they are coughed up and swallowed into the digestive tract, forming a blood-sucking worm burden that lays eggs to complete the life cycle through infected human feces. Hard to believe that in areas of the American South up to 12 % of the inhabitants (particularly children) were infected with hookworm less than a hundred years ago. Such subjects become fascinating in the hands of Dr. Desowitz, who never fails to lighten his dark topic with a bit of wry humor. Reading this book is like sitting in on a great medical school lecture that you'll want to remember all your life -- but watch out! You may never want to leave home again!

-- Auralgo