Quinine: Malaria and the Quest for a Cure That Changed the World - Softcover

Rocco, Fiammetta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060959002 ISBN 13: 9780060959005

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2004

Synopsis

Quinine: The Jesuits discovered it. The Protestants feared it. The British vied with the Dutch for it, and the Nazis seized it. Because of quinine, medicine, warfare, and exploration were changed forever.

For more than one thousand years, there was no cure for malaria. In 1623, after ten cardinals and hundreds of their attendants died in Rome while electing Urban VII the new pope, he announced that a cure must be found. He encouraged Jesuit priests establishing new missions in Asia and in South America to learn everything they could about how the local people treated the disease, and in 1631, an apothecarist in Peru named Agostino Salumbrino dispatched a new miracle to Rome. The cure was quinine, an alkaloid made from the bitter red bark of the cinchona tree.

From the quest of the Englishmen who smuggled cinchona seeds out of South America to the way in which quinine opened the door to Western imperial adventure in Asia, Africa, and beyond, and to malaria's effects even today, award-winning author Fiammetta Rocco deftly chronicles the story of this historically ravenous disease.

About this title

Review:

"An engrossing story...written with immense verve and confidence...crisp and fluent...a gripping and highly readable tale."--New York Times Book Review

"An absorbing and superbly researched history of malaria and its cure."--Sunday Times (London)

"Snappy and sharp...it's almost a crime that so heinous a disease should be treated to so grand a biography."--Kirkus Reviews

"Ms. Rocco tells her four-century saga briskly, with a confident blend of scholarship and memoir."--Wall Street Journal

"Lively, elegantly written and often fascinating"--Evening Standard (London)

About the Author:

Fiammetta Rocco was raised in Kenya. Her grandfather, her father and she herself all suffered from malaria. Ms. Rocco's investigative journalism has won a number of awards in the United States and in Britain. She lives in London, where she is the literary editor of the Economist. This is her first book.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0060959002
• ISBN 13: 9780060959005
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384