Bøger af Robert S. Desowitz

A while ago, DDT and the antimalarial drug chloroquine seemed sure to make us all safe from such invisible assault.It was not to be. The mosquito has become resistant to DDT; malaria is on the rise; although tapeworms rarely turn up any longer in the most lovingly prepared New York City gefilte fish, a worm may inhabit your sashimi; some strains of gonorrhea actually thrive on penicillin; there is even a parasite for the higher tax brackets-the "nymph of Nantucket"; and there are new ailments-legionnaire's disease, Lassa fever, and new strains of influenza.In the long run, one might bet on the insects and the germs. Meanwhile Dr. Robert Desowitz has written a delightful and instructive book.

"[Desowitz's] stories...rank among the best current examples of medical detective prose."-Booklist

We live in a medical fool's paradise, comforted, believing our sanitized Western world is safe from the microbes and parasites of the tropics. Not so, nor was it ever so.

"Reads like a murder mystery...[Desowitz] writes with uncommon lucidity and verse, leaving the reader with a vivid understanding of malaria and other tropical diseases, and the ways in which culture, climate and politics have affected their spread and containment." -New York Times

Dr. Desowitz describes the revolutionary discoveries made by Jenner, Pasteur, Metchnikoff, and Ehrlich and what we know about immunology today. His topics include the role of nutrition, the challenge of developing an AIDS vaccine, and the potential of genetic-engineering techniques.