Phantom Plague
About This Book
Tuberculosis killed George Orwell, Eleanor Roosevelt and millions of others, rich and poor alike. Desmond Tutu, Amitabh Bachchan and Nelson Mandela survived it, though barely. For centuries the disease has torn through cities and wasted bodies, and Phantom Plague by Vidya Krishnan tells its social history from the beginning, when it was a haunting mystery, to the present, when it is returning as a danger to people around the world. The account moves from the slums of nineteenth-century New York to present-day Mumbai. Krishnan follows the shift from superstition and folk remedies to a scientific grasp of TB, which allowed the disease to be controlled and cured in the West. That cure never reached black and brown nations in the same way. The bacillus meanwhile proved remarkably good at adapting. Just when it might have been wiped out, it found a way back, helped along by authoritarian governments, the harmful generosity of philanthropists, science denialism and what the author calls medical apartheid. Drawing on her own reporting, Krishnan gives a detailed picture of the post-antibiotic era, as a new and aggressive drug-resistant strain of TB spreads. The book sets out to show where our defences against this ancient enemy are weakest.
ISBN: 9780670096886
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