Volume 39, Number 1 & 2 · January 16, 1992
A Mystery of the Tropics
By M.F. Perutz
The Malaria Capers: More Tales of Parasites and People, Research and Reality
by Robert S. Desowitz
Norton, 288 pp., $21.95
Some years ago I listened to an emotional appeal by a director of the World Health Organization to fight against the parasitic infections that kill millions of children in the Poor World every year. His speech fell flat, partly because the audience regarded it as a well-rehearsed and often repeated performance, and partly because mere numbers fail to arouse people's emotions. By contrast, the opening of Desowitz's book on tropical diseases strikes to the heart with the story of the illness and unnecessary death of a single child in India. Unnecessary, because the mother could have saved her child had she or the Indian government been able to afford $15 worth of medicine.
Review, 3979 words
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