[May contain spoilers]
Most of the reviews of this book I read describe the work as
compassionate, humane and engrossing. The book's description itself very
rightly says that the author "examines cancer with a cellular biologist's
precision, a historian's perspective and a biographer's passion". However,
my attempt here would be to give a glimpse of the magnitude of work it really
is.
The book starts with the father of modern chemotherapy -
Sidney Farber’s discovery of aminopterin (a folic acid analog) in 1947, which
caused remissions in acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Using this point as the
axis, Siddhartha Mukherjee (SM) dissects both flanges of history, moving back and forth through the
ages with utmost deliberation. The challenge for any science writer is
two-fold, i.e. to capture the interest of a lay man and that of an expert. SM
is an expert in explaining the origin of complex medical jargons sometime
diving into etymology to develop a neat context. Even the core statistical
principles and epidemiological approaches are expounded upon vividly.
In the subsequent chapters, he carefully steers us through
the political turns in the journey of cancer. He talks in detail about the
contribution of Laskerites & Jimmy fund. SM also takes us through the birth
and journey of the national cancer institute and various personalities of the
cancer world.
How the seeds of cancer are knitted with our lifestyles is
also covered in good detail. Special chapters are dedicated to carcinogens,
smoking and the prevention of cancer. How the tobacco industry lobbying operated
in the late half of twentieth century and the role of media advertisements. I
particularly liked the legal aspect of anti-tobacco campaign, and the story of
how the tobacco advertisements actually faded out of public life, after years
of legal battles.
SM tracks the rise and descent of various theories of cancer
over time. He gives a lucid coverage of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery
starting appropriately from the humble beginnings, e.g he starts tracing the
development of radiation therapy right from Madame Curie's discovery of radium
and the idea of chemotherapy coming from chemicals of war. From the first
chemotherapeutic drug - methotrexate to targeted drugs like Herceptin and
Gleevec, in the later part of the book SM transitions to the genetic level
acridly describing the complexities of DNA and proteins in common language.
In
the last chapter of the book, he makes a cataclysmic attempt to connect all the
dots. He traces the ancient queen Attosa's illness of breast cancer travelling
through time from 2500 BCE to the 2000s and gives insights on her prognosis in
different phases of history. Although it sums up the history/biography of
cancer till date, one would have to read the whole book to see the bigger
picture SM has put forth. It is definitely a worthy reading for anyone who has
even a passing interest in science.
