Book: Mosquito: A Natural History of Our Most Persistent and Deadly Foe
Author: Andrew Spielman
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd; UK ed. edition (3 November 2016)
Publisher: Hachette Books; Reprint edition (15 May 2002)
Language: English
Paperback: 248 pages
Reading age: 18 years and up
Item Weight: 318 g
Price: 1600/-
When did you start your tricks
Monsieur?
What do you stand on such high legs for?
Why this length of shredded shank
You exaltation?
Is it so that you shall lift your centre of gravity upwards
And weigh no more than air as you alight upon me,
Stand upon me weightless, you phantom? – D.H. Lawrence, The Mosquito
“We don’t know yet if mosquitoes have an absolute purpose ecologically. The males do drink nectar and pollinate plants, but not to the degree that other insects do, like bees. They don’t ingest waste, like some other insects do. As far as we know, they don’t serve an indispensable food source for any other animal. So no—looking at the historical impact of the mosquito, perhaps their role is a Malthusian check against uncontrolled population growth, and within the ecological balance and equilibrium of Mother Nature.” – [The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, Timothy Winegard]
At the dawn of the 21st century, the mosquito and the pathogens she spreads command notice universally. Each year millions die from mosquito-borne malaria. National economies cringe due to the extent, of the same disease. Cities in Europe and the United States battle outbreaks of the West Nile virus. Dozens of countries fight yellow fever, dengue, filariasis, and countless noxious encephalitis viruses.
The mosquito has killed more people than any other cause of death in human history. Statistical extrapolation situates mosquito-inflicted deaths approaching half of all humans that have ever lived. In plain numbers, the mosquito has dispatched an estimated 52 billion people from a total of 108 billion all the way through our comparatively concise 200,000-year existence.
This insect is not just a prickly pest, but a force of nature that has dictated the conclusion of momentous episodes throughout human history. From ancient Athens to World War II, there have been key moments when mosquito-borne diseases caused militaries to crumble, great leaders to fall ill, and populations to be left susceptible to invasion.
All around the globe, historians recorded the bane of mosquitoes. Evidence of outbreaks survives from ancient India and Mesopotamia. In ancient China, men traveling to malarious areas were advised to arrange for their wives’ remarriage before departing. Many Egyptian mummies have enlarged spleens, a symptom of the disease.
Alexander the Great was probably killed by malaria in 323 B.C. Carthage was known to be infected at the time of Christ, and malaria almost certainly helped prevent Genghis Khan from invading Western Europe.
Until the 1890s, no one would know for sure that the fevers, which most likely afflicted the very first human beings to evolve in Africa, were carried by mosquitoes. Nevertheless, over and over again, physicians and chroniclers fittingly associated dirty, standing water with these illnesses.
And they also linked them to travel, armies on the move, and the clash of cultures.
Here they were correct again. Changing human habits donate to mosquito-borne epidemics.
20 or 30 thousand years ago, when humans lived in small, isolated communities, so did their germs. Malaria, various parasites, and viruses were delivered by mosquitoes, made their attacks, and the body responded with illness and then either death or partial or complete immunity.
A certain balance was struck, permitting both the microbes and the human animal to persist and perhaps also to prosper.
The balance began to change when European exploration of remote lands expanded into commerce.
The first traders brought their own microbes—really unpleasant biological weapons—into virgin environments where the bodies of the locals were ill prepared to fight them.
Yet, the mosquito does not openly harm anyone. It is the toxic and highly evolved diseases the mosquito transmits that cause an infinite barrage of anguish and death. Without the mosquito, however, these ominous pathogens could not be transferred or vectored to humans nor continue their cyclical contagion. In fact, without the mosquito, these diseases would not exist at all.
The mosquito has without fail been at the front lines of history as ‘the grim reaper’, the harvester of human populations, and the eventual agent of historical change. She has played a greater role in shaping our story than any other animal with which we share our global village.
Within these bloody and disease-plagued pages, you will embark on a chronological mosquito-tormented journey through our tangled communal history.
This book has been divided into three parts.
Part One, entitled the ‘Magnificent Enemy’ is concerned with the life of the mosquito. It investigates the mosquito’s world, with all its dangers. And it examines the mosquito’s adjustment to different environments, including those special niches where mosquitoes and people come together.
The chapters included here are:
1. The Mosquito Herself
2. An Insect’s World
3. Tigers and Tires
Part Two, entitled ‘The Mosquito and Disease’, sheds light on the mosquito’s close relationship with human beings. Centuries back, a few bright minds actually guessed that there was a connection between mosquitoes and diseases such as malaria and yellow fever. But this concept was so unbelievable to the mainstream of science at the time that it was dismissed.
As recently as 1870, the idea that a mosquito might kill was considered laughable. The advanced discoveries of the mosquito’s lethal qualities were appalling to the general public. They led straight away to an epoch of fierce scientific rivalry.
What was learned changed our perception of disease and revolutionized the course of human history.
The chapters included here are:
4. Agent of History
5. Vector
6. Man against Mosquito
The final section of the book, i.e. Part Three, is called ‘The Balance’. This speaks of the modern era, which has understood the dangers posed by mosquitoes and tried to confront them. Much progress has been made. We now have effective therapies for many mosquito-borne diseases. And we have workable methods for confronting mosquitoes in the environment.
The chapters included here are:
7. The Great Mosquito Crusade
8. Disease without Borders
9. Living with Mosquitoes
What is it that this book tells us, in fine? The following:
1) This creature has dictated terms on the earth for 190 million years and has slain with constant potency for most of her unrivaled reign of terror.
2) This minuscule but persistent insect has punched well above its weight class with unadulterated vehemence and intensity. Across the ages, she has imposed her resolve on humanity and has ordered the course of history.
3) The mosquito was the mastermind of events, nurturing and mothering the creation of the modern global order.
4) The mosquito has consumed almost every corner of our planet, devoured a gigantic selection of animals, including the dinosaurs, while collecting the corpses of an estimated 52 billion people for good measure.
5) The mosquito sponsored both the rise and fall of ancient empires, she gave birth to self-governing nations while heartlessly subduing and subjugating others.
6) She has crippled and even destroyed economies and has prowled the most important and crucial battles, menaced and slaughtered the greatest armies of her generations, and outmaneuvered the most celebrated generals and military minds ever mustered to arms, slaying many of these men in the course of her carnage.
7) Throughout mankind’s record of violence, Generals Anopheles and Aedes were powerful weapons of war, moonlighting as alarming foes or rapacious allies.
In recent years humans have somewhat dampened the offensive of this deadly predator. However, as natural global warming, hastened by greenhouse gas emissions, consumes our planet, the mosquito is increasing the battlefield by opening new fronts and piercing areas of operation previously liberated of mosquito-borne diseases.
Its reach is mounting, expanding both north and south and perpendicularly into higher altitudes as previously untapped regions warm up to her presence.
Stalwart mosquito-borne diseases maintain a steadfast evolutionary commitment to survival and pose a mounting threat to progressively mobile and mingling human populations.
Even in the face of modern science and medicine, the mosquito remains the most hazardous animal to humankind.
To meet the health threats that are growing worse in many corners of the world, we must know the mosquito and see clearly her place in nature.
More important, we should understand many aspects of our relationship to this tiny, ubiquitous insect, and appreciate our long, historical struggle to share this planet.
D.H. Lawrence ends his poem ‘The Mosquito’ with the following lines:
Can I not overtake you?
Are you one too many for me
Winged Victory?
Am I not mosquito enough to out-mosquito you?
Queer, what a big stain my sucked blood makes
Beside the infinitesimal faint smear of you!
Queer, what a dim dark smudge you have disappeared into!
Humanity has to voyage few million miles more before this gruesome predator can truthfully become a smudge
An attention-grabbing book! Get a copy if you choose.