This book is a super-detailed history of the fight with cancer, starting with its earliest mentions in the histories of the Romans in 500 BC and continuing to the present day. Mukherjee, an oncologist by training, started researching and writing this book in response to his patients telling him, "I need to know what it is I'm fighting." He writes about the earliest attempts to find a cure for cancer in the eighteenth century, the beginnings of true modern cancer research in the 1940s and 50s, and the changes in society's views of cancer through fundraising efforts and developed understandings of what causes cancer (like things like asbestos and smoking). He ends in the modern day with what he believes is the future of cancer--we won't be able to perfectly prevent it or cure it, but our understanding of the genetic makeup of cancer will help us to adapt the treatments perfectly for each person's cancer and hopefully make it that much easier to cure. Throughout the book, Mukherjee also writes about his experiences with his own patients as he develops as an oncologist, and shares about the patients who died in his care and those who miraculously survived.
I really was interested in this book. Mukherjee writes very well and was extremely easy to follow, even though I was listening to the audiobook and it gets pretty technical at times (particularly once he started talking about the cellular makeup and genes involved in cancer mutations). I was specifically interested in the different stories of cancer treatments being developed, like lung cancer and the changes in understanding about smoking and cancer. He does a great job of writing about the scientific developments behind cancer treatments but also writing about the people behind those developments, and the societal norms of the time. This was a really long and hefty book (it was 20 hours of audio listening) but I thought well worth the effort.
No comments:
Post a Comment