Book Review: Miraculous Fever-Tree by Fiammetta Rocco
The Miraculous Fever Tree: Malaria, medicine and the cure that changed the world. By Fiammetta Rocco (HarperCollins publisher, 2004. Pp. x. 420.iBook $7.99 paper $7.59.)
In The Miraculous Fever Tree, outlines the connection between the Cinchona calisaya, the red-barked Andean tree that produced quinine to fight malaria and real life accountings from the author, her grandfather, and father. "The problem was that quinine was difficult to obtain, as supplies from the 1860s on were intermittent"(20). She accomplishes this task by focusing on re-accounts that she believes played a crucial role in how the use of Quinine from the Cinchona calisaya species and the science that took place to defeat Malaria…show more content… Rocco's father once contracting Malaria would travel to Nairobi to be treated by Dr. Mauro Saio an Italian, who was the world's leading specialist in treating Malaria. "Dr. Mauro Saio has worked so long with the disease that he named his speedboat Anopheles after the mosquito that spreads the disease"(27). In Europe, there were severe cases isolated around Rome specifically in the Basilica of St. Peter's. "Every summer for centuries it killed hundreds of people, making no distinction between peasant, priest or pope"(40). Rocco further explains how Gigli wrote about the rise and fall of the Tiber, and how frequently it flooded the plain of the Campagna, resulting in pools of water through the countryside which resulted in increase in mosquito populations. Gigli also had a personal account of Malaria when his only grandchild of fifteen years passed in as quick as three days, and no amount of herbs and amulets would've save