Book Review: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Though the book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, is about a morbid topic, Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee does a great job of explaining the science behind the dreaded disease and the doctors & scientists who strive to conquer this almost immortal disease. 

I highly recommend the 500+ paged "The Emperor of All Maladies" to all those who love science. It is not surprising that this book won the author the Pulitzer prize & garnered over 1000+ reviews (unusual for a non-fiction book) on Amazon for his excellent science writing.

There are many layers to this book. What appealed to me the most were the stories of humble & dedicated scientists who overcame great adversity & sometimes ridicule, to make ground-breaking discoveries. In particular, I found the perseverance of Yellapragada "Yella" Subbarao, Dr. George Papanicolaou (Dr. Pap) & Dr. Barry Marshall very inspiring.

Yella (as he is referred in the book) had to work as a night porter after he landed in the US (in 1923) but went to become Director of Research at Lederle & did invaluable work in anti-cancer research. Subbarao's citizenship status however was 'alien' till he passed away in 1948 in the US.
Dr. Pap, the inventor of the "Pap smear" test, first reported that uterine cancer could be diagnosed by means of a vaginal smear in 1928 but the importance of his work was not recognized until 1943.
His wife Mary was his first and long term, human subject for his experiments. (Talking of Mary, did you know, the family of the other science couple Mary & Pierre Curie has the unique distinction of winning the most Nobel Prizes)

After failing to find evidence for a long time to prove his theory that H. pylori bacteria can cause peptic ulcer and gastric cancer, Barry Marshall drank a Petri dish containing cultured H. pylori. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Robin Warren in 2005, "for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease".

"Yella" Subbarao who always chose to stay away from the limelight said, "The victories of science are rarely won single handed". It is remarkable that science knows no boundaries - boundaries of race, gender and age.

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