Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria?: Tropical Diseases in a Temperate World by Robert S Desowitz

Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria?: Tropical Diseases in a Temperate World by Robert S Desowitz

An instructive, often humorous, chronicle of how the worms and germs of the tropical world have made and are making their way north. We live in a fool's paradise, comforted, despite all evidence to the contrary, that we are insulated from the scourging microbial and parasitic diseases of the tropics. Yet past and present history reveals that many of the "classic" tropical diseases are, in reality, temperate too yellow fever in Philadelphia, the Ebola virus in Maryland and Virginia, and the Mexican pig tapeworm in Brooklyn. Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria? traces the origin of these extraordinary, but by no means isolated, cases. Did the crew of the Santa Maria bring syphilis (Pinta) back from the New World? Did Charles Darwin suffer a protracted illness and eventually die from the bite of an assassin bug while traveling through Argentina? Writing with enthusiasm and from wide medical experience, Dr. Robert Desowitz is a veritable Sherlock Holmes of parasites and pathogens. Spanning a human history of over 50,000 years, Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria? also looks ahead to the constant dangers of microbial diseases of unprecedented savagery"Doomsday bugs" creeping into the industrialized world.

Robert S. Desowitz (1926—2008) was a leading epidemiologist and the author of New Guinea Tape Worms and Jewish Grandmothers and The Malaria Capers, among other books.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780393040845
ISBN 10	0393040844
Title	Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria?: Tropical Diseases in a Temperate World
Author	Robert S Desowitz
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	WW Norton & Co
Year published	1997-05-17
Number of pages	256
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.