The doctor apparently had a good background in verse. As someone more grounded in the humanities than the sciences, I liked that he chose to include some from literary figures. The author began each chapter with quotes. He included the physician Imhotep’s chilling description of the treatment: “There is none.” () The most intriguing revelation I found concerned how the Ancient Egyptians may have identified the disease. He also detailed the innovative ways researchers sought new means to combat this “emperor of all maladies.” He called this scourge “possibly the oldest disease among humans.” () Throughout the story he described the (sometimes quirky) physicians who made breakthrough discoveries. Mukherjee chose to present his story as a “biography” of cancer. Instead of presenting a dry scientific tome, Dr. While he lost me with some of his bio-chemical explanations and descriptions of how various drugs function, I found the overall work understandable. I thank him for writing such an accessible work about one of the most complex medical challenges to afflict human kind. The author is a cancer physician, researcher and an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University.
Because of this, I felt compelled to read Dr.
Myriad acquaintances of mine have battled the disease. My paternal grandmother survived cancer twice. Her brother passed away from cancer at the age of 49. That statement’s accuracy resonates with me. The author quoted journalist Paul Brodeur who observed, “Statistics are human beings with the tears wiped off.” () In some nations, cancer will surpass heart disease to become the most common cause of death. A quarter of all American deaths, and about 15 percent of all deaths worldwide, will be attributed to cancer. In the United States, one in three women and one in two men will develop cancer during their lifetime. In 2010, about six hundred thousand Americans, and more than 7 million humans around the world, will die of cancer.
In the prologue to The Emperor of all Maladies, Dr. If the history of medicine is told through the stories of doctors, it is because their contributions stand in place of the more substantive heroism of their patients. Resilience, inventiveness, and survivorship-qualities often ascribed to great physicians-are reflected qualities, emanating first from those who struggle with illness and only then mirrored by those who treat them. It is the story of patients who struggle and survive, moving from one embankment of illness to another. But the story of leukemia-the story of cancer-isn’t the story of doctors who struggle and survive, moving from one institution to another.
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