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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Before the discovery of malaria's causes and treatments, the mosquito-borne illness was a killer that held sway over tropical countries and extended deadly tendrils into more northern climes. Born in Kenya, Rocco (literary editor at The Economist) was exposed to the disease at an early age. Four of the girls from her primary school class died of cerebral malaria before they turned 40, and she herself contracted the illness in her teens, a fact which may have spurred her desire to write this engaging history of malaria's most popular cure: quinine. Using anecdotes from her far-ranging research as a narrative hook, Rocco 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. It also helped European explorers and missionaries survive the disease as they entered new territories. Rocco's many descriptions of her travels and of her personal experiences with malaria keep her story interesting and immediate, and she stirs in enough science to explain the how malaria and its cure actually work, making this a good choice for fans of memoir and science history. 16-page b&w photo insert.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Like Mark Kurlansky's superb Cod (1997) and Salt (2001), Rocco's book is the history of a commodity--quinine--and commerce is the mainspring of its development. Europeans had suffered from malaria immemorially but found reliable relief only as a result of colonizing South America, where Spanish Jesuits heard of and were led to the cinchona tree; they prepared its bark as directed by the indigenes, took it to Rome, and persuaded at least some of the medical establishment of the time that the "Jesuit powder" was effective. Spain then cornered the quinine trade, and rival European powers strove by means mostly foul--smuggling cinchona seeds and seedlings--to subvert it, ultimately successfully. The science of malaria and quinine were worked out in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the latest major part of quinine's story is about maintaining supplies under trying conditions in the places that now need it most: the often strife-torn tropical nations. Rocco unfolds this saga in terms of major figures and events, from malaria-threatened seventeenth-century papal elections to a contemporary quinine producer's decision to remain in the Congo and help its people. Her clear prose and personal investment--having grown up in Africa, she knows malaria and quinine all too personally--ensure that every episode of her narrative enthralls. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
Before the discovery of malaria's causes and treatments, the mosquito-borne illness was a killer that held sway over tropical countries and extended deadly tendrils into more northern climes. Born in Kenya, Rocco (literary editor at The Economist) was exposed to the disease at an early age. Four of the girls from her primary school class died of cerebral malaria before they turned 40, and she herself contracted the illness in her teens, a fact which may have spurred her desire to write this engaging history of malaria's most popular cure: quinine. Using anecdotes from her far-ranging research as a narrative hook, Rocco 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. It also helped European explorers and missionaries survive the disease as they entered new territories. Rocco's many descriptions of her travels and of her personal experiences with malaria keep her story interesting and immediate, and she stirs in enough science to explain the how malaria and its cure actually work, making this a good choice for fans of memoir and science history. 16-page b&w photo insert.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Like Mark Kurlansky's superb Cod (1997) and Salt (2001), Rocco's book is the history of a commodity--quinine--and commerce is the mainspring of its development. Europeans had suffered from malaria immemorially but found reliable relief only as a result of colonizing South America, where Spanish Jesuits heard of and were led to the cinchona tree; they prepared its bark as directed by the indigenes, took it to Rome, and persuaded at least some of the medical establishment of the time that the "Jesuit powder" was effective. Spain then cornered the quinine trade, and rival European powers strove by means mostly foul--smuggling cinchona seeds and seedlings--to subvert it, ultimately successfully. The science of malaria and quinine were worked out in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the latest major part of quinine's story is about maintaining supplies under trying conditions in the places that now need it most: the often strife-torn tropical nations. Rocco unfolds this saga in terms of major figures and events, from malaria-threatened seventeenth-century papal elections to a contemporary quinine producer's decision to remain in the Congo and help its people. Her clear prose and personal investment--having grown up in Africa, she knows malaria and quinine all too personally--ensure that every episode of her narrative enthralls. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
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