The Mosquito The A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator

The book “The Mosquito The A Human History Of Our Deadliest Predator” is a wandering treatment of one of life’s constant annoyances and worse. “We are at war with the mosquito,” and there’s reason for that: there are something like 110 trillion mosquitoes floating around humankind’s ankles and nostrils at any given moment and when you count up the death toll from malaria, Zika virus, dengue fever, and the like, mosquitoes are responsible for some 830,000 human deaths per year, logarithmic orders from the 10 or so humans who fall victim to sharks. The author thinks about this book calculates that as many as half of all the humans who have ever lived may have fallen to mosquitoes, especially in the days before quinine and DDT were discovered. The author’s survey of history covers ground that is largely well known, including the role of mosquito-borne illnesses in the American Revolution and Civil War and the long effort, planned under Julius Caesar but not effected until Benito Mussolini’s reign, to drain the Pontine Marshes outside Rome. The author does uncover some lesser-known moments, however, such as the malaria research conducted by Chinese scientists during the Vietnam War and he is good on why some human populations seem more vulnerable to mosquito-borne illnesses than others. TW