By Siddhartha Mukherjee. An oncologist by training, Doctor Mukherjee studied at some of America's oldest educational institutions and continues to lecture at some others. His book titled the same as this blog, won the 2011 Pulitzer for nonfiction. While a longish and largely technical read, it was a chance encounter with a parent during a college visit that prompted me to check it out. I am glad I read it.
It is in the author's words a 'biography of cancer'. Second leading cause of death in America after heart disease, this is a fate worse than death itself. Most of us know someone or a degree removed who either is battling this horrible disease or has succumbed to it. Cancer has the uncanny ability to be humiliating, demeaning, strip one of their humanity and a fate worse than a life sentence.
As a trained medical doctor, Mukherjee has attempted to be the detective looking for clues about cancer and a historian all in in this one book.
From fascinating anecdotes going back millenia to modern scientists (that I remember reading about in grade school without much interest) the book has stories about patients that he treated as well as historic discoveries that changed the game of medicine, specifically in diagnosing and offering treatment options for cancer.
Story of Pierre and Marie Curie falling in love was a result of their mutual attraction to study magnetism are fun reminders of how science can be told in an interesting way.
From early pioneers in Europe like a German scientist and physician called 'Virchow', who gave 'Leukemia' its name (for Lukos in Greek meaning 'white' to account for the excess white cells seen in a patient's blood sample), to Rontgen's accidental discovery of X-rays and their ability to pass through human tissue are fascinating insights into the cat and mouse game of fighting a deadly disease. That led to the study and eventual use of radiation as a form of treatment for cancer.
While not promising that a cure is at hand, the tenacity of all the physicians and scientists studying non-stop and experimenting with modern options might one day soon help humanity come close to conquering this Emperor of Maladies.
It is in the author's words a 'biography of cancer'. Second leading cause of death in America after heart disease, this is a fate worse than death itself. Most of us know someone or a degree removed who either is battling this horrible disease or has succumbed to it. Cancer has the uncanny ability to be humiliating, demeaning, strip one of their humanity and a fate worse than a life sentence.
As a trained medical doctor, Mukherjee has attempted to be the detective looking for clues about cancer and a historian all in in this one book.
From fascinating anecdotes going back millenia to modern scientists (that I remember reading about in grade school without much interest) the book has stories about patients that he treated as well as historic discoveries that changed the game of medicine, specifically in diagnosing and offering treatment options for cancer.
Story of Pierre and Marie Curie falling in love was a result of their mutual attraction to study magnetism are fun reminders of how science can be told in an interesting way.
From early pioneers in Europe like a German scientist and physician called 'Virchow', who gave 'Leukemia' its name (for Lukos in Greek meaning 'white' to account for the excess white cells seen in a patient's blood sample), to Rontgen's accidental discovery of X-rays and their ability to pass through human tissue are fascinating insights into the cat and mouse game of fighting a deadly disease. That led to the study and eventual use of radiation as a form of treatment for cancer.
While not promising that a cure is at hand, the tenacity of all the physicians and scientists studying non-stop and experimenting with modern options might one day soon help humanity come close to conquering this Emperor of Maladies.
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