The Malaria Capers
Tales of Parasites and People
18 August 1993
Description
"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
Why, Robert S. Desowitz asks, has biotechnical research on malaria produced so little when it had promised so much? An expert in tropical diseases, Desowtiz searches for answers in this provocative book.
Reviews
"Just as it was not necessary to be an astrophysicist to feel the grandeur and scope of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time it is not necessary to be a parasitologist or specialist in tropical medicine to relate to the drama, tragedy, and even romance of Desowitz's fascinating and provocative story…Interesting and important." — New England Journal of Medicine
"A gripping account of how a one-celled protozoan has triumphed over modern science." — Wall Street Journal
"Like a novelist, [Desowitz] draws the reader into the human tragedy of disease…Rich in historical-medical detective stories." — Betty Ann Kevles, Los Angeles Times
"Like such eminent science writers as Stephen Jay Gould and Lewis Thomas, Mr. Desowitz manages to make the basic principles of his subject immediately comprehensible to the general reader. He has also succeeded in giving us a profound appreciation of the ways in which scientific and medical knowledge advances, through hypothesis, error and experiment, through serendipity, dedication, and perseverance." — Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Also By: Robert S. Desowitz 
Federal Bodysnatchers and the New Guinea Virus: Tales of Parasites, People, and Politics
E Book, 2015
"[Desowitz's] stories...rank among the best current examples of medical detective prose."—Booklist
Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria?: Torrid Diseases in a Temperate World
Paperback, 2007
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.
Federal Bodysnatchers and the New Guinea Virus: Tales of Parasites, People, and Politics
Paperback, 2004
"[Desowitz's] stories...rank among the best current examples of medical detective prose."—Booklist
Thorn in the Starfish: The Immune System and How It Works
Paperback, 1989
New Guinea Tapeworms and Jewish Grandmothers: Tales of Parasites and People
Paperback, 1987
The medical tapestry of the world is full of organisms too small to see, carried by flying and creeping creatures too numerous to eradicate.