Background
Desowitz, Robert was born on January 2, 1926 in New York City. Son of Charles Desowitz and Bertha Schaen.
(New Guinea Tapeworms and Jewish Grandmothers: Tales of Pa...)
New Guinea Tapeworms and Jewish Grandmothers: Tales of Parasites and People New Guinea Tapeworms and Jewish Grandmothers: Tales of Parasites and People by Desowitz, Robert S. ( Author ) Paperback May- 1987 Paperback May- 17- 1987
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HTJXIMM/?tag=2022091-20
( "Reads like a murder mystery. . . . Desowitz writes wit...)
"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 Why, Robert S. Desowitz asks, has biotechnical research on malaria produced so little when it had promised so much? An expert in tropical diseases, Desowtiz searches for answers in this provocative book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393310086/?tag=2022091-20
( We live in a medical fool's paradise, comforted, believ...)
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. Past--and present--tell us that tropical diseases are as American as the heart attack; yellow fever lived happily for centuries in Philadelphia. Malaria liked it fine in Washington, not to mention in the Carolinas where it took right over. The Ebola virus stopped off in Baltimore, and the Mexican pig tapeworm has settled comfortably among orthodox Jews in Brooklyn. This book starts with the little creatures the first American immigrants brought with them on the long walk from Siberia 50,000 years ago. It moves on to all that unwanted baggage that sailed over with the Spanish, French, and the English and killed native Americans in huge numbers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. (The native Americans, it appears, got some revenge by passing syphilis--including Pinta, a feisty strain of syphilis--back to Europe with Columbus's returning sailors.) Nor have the effects of these diseases on people and economics been fully appreciated. Did slavery last so long because Africans were semi-immune to malaria and yellow fever, while Southern whites of all ranks fell in thousands to those diseases? In the final chapters, Robert S. Desowitz takes us through the Good Works of the twentieth century, Kid Rockefeller and the Battling Hookworm, and the rearrival of malaria; and he offers a glimpse into the future with a host of "Doomsday bugs" and jet-setting viruses that make life, quite literally, a jungle out there.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393332640/?tag=2022091-20
( The medical tapestry of the world is full of organisms ...)
The medical tapestry of the world is full of organisms too small to see, carried by flying and creeping creatures too numerous to eradicate. A while ago, DDT and the antimalarial drug chloroquine seemed sure to make us all safe from such invisible assault. It was not to be. The mosquito has become resistant to DDT; malaria is on the rise; although tapeworms rarely turn up any longer in the most lovingly prepared New York City gefilte fish, a worm may inhabit your sashimi; some strains of gonorrhea actually thrive on penicillin; there is even a parasite for the higher tax brackets―the "nymph of Nantucket"; and there are new ailments―legionnaire's disease, Lassa fever, and new strains of influenza. In the long run, one might bet on the insects and the germs. Meanwhile Dr. Robert Desowitz has written a delightful and instructive book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393304264/?tag=2022091-20
Desowitz, Robert was born on January 2, 1926 in New York City. Son of Charles Desowitz and Bertha Schaen.
Bachelor cum laude, University Buffalo, 1948. Doctor of Philosophy, University London, 1951. Doctor of Science, University London, 1961.
He served in the United States Army from 1944-1946. He received a bachelor"s degree from the University at Buffalo in 1948. He earned a double doctorate in parasitology and medical biology from the University of London in 1951.
From 1951-1960, he worked for West African Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research in Vom, Nigeria.
In 1960, he joined the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine as Chairman of Medical Parasitology, where he worked until 1965. He then worked as Chief of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization Laboratory"s Department of Parisitology in Bangkok from 1965-1968.
While working there, he spent time doing research in Papua New Guinea. Desowitz worked from 1968-1995 as a professor in public health, tropical medicine, and microbiology at the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii.
During his tenure there, he spent time researching malaria in Kenya.
Upon retirement as professor emeritus from the University of Hawaii, Desowitz worked as adjunct professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina"s School of Public Health.
(New Guinea Tapeworms and Jewish Grandmothers: Tales of Pa...)
( We live in a medical fool's paradise, comforted, believ...)
( The medical tapestry of the world is full of organisms ...)
(An expert scientist takes readers gently but with authori...)
( "Reads like a murder mystery. . . . Desowitz writes wit...)
(1997 256 pages. Hardbound with very good dust jacket, ver...)
(Reprint)
Fellow American Society Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (emeritus), Malaysian Society Tropical Medicine (honorary, president 1963-1966).
Married Carrolee Harned, September 12, 1969. Children from previous marriage: Duba Leibell, Gregory.