thedailychannel.com — recommended books

Mosquito: A natural history of our most persistent and Deadly Foe
by Andrew Spielman and Michael D'Antonio

This book, a gripping collaboration between one of the world's mosquito experts and a science writer of great clarity of expression, makes GREAT summer reading. Actually, with West Nile virus headed this way (unless you live in New York or Florida, in which case West Nile may have already arrived in your neighborhood), it could make great winter reading, too.

Consider the following quote from p. 98 of Mosquito:

"Yellow fever moves more quickly than malaria through a population and once it attacks a person, it can bring death quickly.... Amazingly, yellow fever has never struck Asia. Distance, quarantines, and good luck have probably kept the virus away. If yellow fever broke out in India, for example, where vector mosquitoes and their human hosts are exceptionally abundant, the loss of life would be cataclysmic."

What does this mean? That the end of modern India as we know it is only a shipment of old tires to the subcontinent away? And what of China?

This book has it all: war, peace, history, science, medicine, public health, elephantiasis... parasitology! The description of elephantiasis alone made me want to run out and buy yards and yards of mosquito netting, but I think I'll just settle for curtailing my planned travel in Africa so that it avoids that continent entirely.

If you are a careful reader you will learn to be able identify male mosquitoes (the ones that don't bite) and invite them to your home. You'll learn the feeding habits of the females of various mosquito species, which you might also be able to identify, using the useful drawings in the back of the book. Finally you'll learn the sad and sorry truth about mosquitoes and bats.

The section in 'Mosquito' on the geopolitical use of DDT during the Cold War, and how the perception of DDT's usefulness has changed, is alone worth the modest price of the entire book, but there are public health issues here that merit serious attention, especially if you have ever known anyone afflicted by a mosquito-borne disease, even in this advanced and modern world.

Buzz on over to amazon.com and stick your proboscis into Mosquito.

reviewed September 6, 2001

Further note: if you live in Los Angeles and see a dead crow or raven, you can call 1-877-WNV-BIRD to get it picked up and examined for West Nile Virus. No, I am not kidding.