03-10-2020, 11:35 AM
During WWII, in the Pacific Theater, Dr. Paul Russell (the world's top malaria expert) approached a soldier about cleaning up mosquito breeding sites, and was dismissed contemptuously. After all, the Japs were the real enemy, and he didn't have time for some lame assignment. Russell then went to the soldier's commanding officer about the matter, only to be met with the same attitude. At that point Russell reported back to General Douglas MacArthur, who had hired him for this task, telling him what he was encountering. MacArthur promptly removed that soldier and officer from their roles and made it clear to all that Russell's orders were to be obeyed.
And so it went, with soldiers spraying DDT everywhere and filling in every little puddle -- and oh, by the way, carpet bombing the islands had the deleterious effect of creating ideal breeding holes for mosquitoes -- because MacArthur understood that malaria was the biggest threat to his forces (what with the Japanese controlling quinine sources).
The Mosquito is a huge book, heavily researched, with a long bibliography. It's not really about nature or biology. Winegard is a historian. He retells the history of the world through the lens of disease, with the focus on those transmitted by mosquito. It is mostly human history, though he does make forays into the distant past. For instance, there has long been controversy over what killed the dinosaurs. The meteor impact 66 million years ago almost certainly finished them off. But dinosaurs were showing a decline prior to that. As it turns out, malaria first arose about then, and there is clear evidence of malaria in T-Rex fossils. Winegard argues that this was what weakened their numbers beforehand.
Malaria and other mosquito-transmitted diseases played a major role in so many major events down through history. Almost every attempt at expansion and conquest was ultimately thwarted by disease, and especially malaria. While indigenous populations were "seasoned" to such diseases, invaders suffered miserably. Malaria is what stopped Hannibal and his forces just short of Rome. In fact, Rome survived countless sieges thanks to notorious swamps on its outskirts, where the attacking army would be decimated by malaria. Genghis Khan stopped short of eastern Europe likely because of malaria factors. The British lost the Colonies largely because the colonialists had become seasoned and the British were not. In the Civil War, the North gained a big advantage by controlling quinine sources. And so on.
I found it hard to believe the statement early in the book that almost half of all the humans who ever lived died of malaria. But it's a very convincing and sobering tome.
If you're wanting a world history refresher, I highly recommend this book. I will never be able to watch a war-and-conquest period-piece film again without thinking about what's being left out. Being a soldier, or even a leader, back in the day was full of so much misery and suffering.
And so it went, with soldiers spraying DDT everywhere and filling in every little puddle -- and oh, by the way, carpet bombing the islands had the deleterious effect of creating ideal breeding holes for mosquitoes -- because MacArthur understood that malaria was the biggest threat to his forces (what with the Japanese controlling quinine sources).
The Mosquito is a huge book, heavily researched, with a long bibliography. It's not really about nature or biology. Winegard is a historian. He retells the history of the world through the lens of disease, with the focus on those transmitted by mosquito. It is mostly human history, though he does make forays into the distant past. For instance, there has long been controversy over what killed the dinosaurs. The meteor impact 66 million years ago almost certainly finished them off. But dinosaurs were showing a decline prior to that. As it turns out, malaria first arose about then, and there is clear evidence of malaria in T-Rex fossils. Winegard argues that this was what weakened their numbers beforehand.
Malaria and other mosquito-transmitted diseases played a major role in so many major events down through history. Almost every attempt at expansion and conquest was ultimately thwarted by disease, and especially malaria. While indigenous populations were "seasoned" to such diseases, invaders suffered miserably. Malaria is what stopped Hannibal and his forces just short of Rome. In fact, Rome survived countless sieges thanks to notorious swamps on its outskirts, where the attacking army would be decimated by malaria. Genghis Khan stopped short of eastern Europe likely because of malaria factors. The British lost the Colonies largely because the colonialists had become seasoned and the British were not. In the Civil War, the North gained a big advantage by controlling quinine sources. And so on.
I found it hard to believe the statement early in the book that almost half of all the humans who ever lived died of malaria. But it's a very convincing and sobering tome.
If you're wanting a world history refresher, I highly recommend this book. I will never be able to watch a war-and-conquest period-piece film again without thinking about what's being left out. Being a soldier, or even a leader, back in the day was full of so much misery and suffering.
I'm nobody's pony.