Who gave Pinta to the Santa Maria? : torrid diseases in a temperate world
by Robert S. Desowitz
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Past--and present--tell us that tropical diseases are as American as the heart attack; yellow fever lived happily for centuries in Philadelphia. Malaria liked it fine in Washington, not to mention in the Carolinas where it took right over. The Ebola virus stopped off in Baltimore, and the Mexican pig tapeworm has settled comfortably among orthodox Jews in Brooklyn.This book starts with the little creatures the first American immigrants brought with them on the long walk from Siberia 50,000 show more years ago. It moves on to all that unwanted baggage that sailed over with the Spanish, French, and the English and killed native Americans in huge numbers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. (The native Americans, it appears, got some revenge by passing syphilis--including Pinta, a feisty strain of syphilis--back to Europe with Columbus's returning sailors.)Nor have the effects of these diseases on people and economics been fully appreciated. Did slavery last so long because Africans were semi-immune to malaria and yellow fever, while Southern whites of all ranks fell in thousands to those diseases?In the final chapters, Robert S. Desowitz takes us through the Good Works of the twentieth century, Kid Rockefeller and the Battling Hookworm, and the rearrival of malaria; and he offers a glimpse into the future with a host of "Doomsday bugs" and jet-setting viruses that make life, quite literally, a jungle out there. show lessTags
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5 Works 497 Members
Robert S. Desowitz, a leading epidemiologist lives in Pinehurst, North Carolina
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Who gave Pinta to the Santa Maria? : torrid diseases in a temperate world
- Original publication date
- 1997
- Dedication
- For Carrolee
- First words
- In 1962, when Indonesia's dictator, Sukarno, was in flower, I attended a meeting of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Secretariat Tropical Medicine Project. (Introduction)
My grandparents sailed to America from Austria and Galicia in the 1880s, swept up in the wave of nineteenth-century immigration. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)If all the sciences are not encouraged, the disciplines that effect our health and well-being will ultimately wither at a dead end.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Science & Nature, General Nonfiction, History
- DDC/MDS
- 616.9883 — Applied science & technology Medicine & health Diseases, Allergies, Skin Conditions Infections, AIDS, Cancer Noncommunicable diseases and environmental medicine
- LCC
- RC962 .A45 .D47 — Medicine Internal medicine Internal medicine Special situations and conditions Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 137
- Popularity
- 237,903
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.25)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 6
