Books by Robert S. Desowitz

"[Desowitz's] stories...rank among the best current examples of medical detective prose."-Booklist

We live in a medical fool's paradise, comforted, believing our sanitized Western world is safe from the microbes and parasites of the tropics. Not so, nor was it ever so.

"Reads like a murder mystery...[Desowitz] writes with uncommon lucidity and verse, leaving the reader with a vivid understanding of malaria and other tropical diseases, and the ways in which culture, climate and politics have affected their spread and containment." -New York Times

Dr. Desowitz describes the revolutionary discoveries made by Jenner, Pasteur, Metchnikoff, and Ehrlich and what we know about immunology today. His topics include the role of nutrition, the challenge of developing an AIDS vaccine, and the potential of genetic-engineering techniques.