Product Description

An inspiring story of scientific endeavour and human bravery, The Plague Race is the story of one brave scientist who made an amazing discovery made in Hong Kong 100 years ago -- during an outbreak of the plague that threatened to decimate the island and, from there, the world. A tense and frightening race was run in appalling conditions by two rival scientists: Alexandre Yersin - rigorous, solitary, cerebral - and the suave Kitasako, unscrupulous, enigmatic, careless. Spiced with anecdotes, facts and chilling reconstructions, this book is an enthralling work of narrative history. And Marriott's investigations into plague in the modern world bring some disturbing facts to light . . . 'Beautifully written . . . Marriott's discourse encompasses empire, science and discovery as well as prejudice . . . The Plague Race is part history, part thesis, part thriller. As an investigation, it is all-entrancing' Observer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #992196 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
'Beautifully written... Marriott's discourse encompasses empire, science and discovery as well as prejudice... The Plague Race is part history, part thesis, part thriller. As an investigation, it is all-entrancing' Observer

The Times
Fascinating... highly gripping

Spectator
An intelligent, engrossing and, above all, highly readable account of an intriguing subject.

Customer Reviews

Scary stuff
Introduced gently to the concept of plague, via the two main players at the turn of the twentieth century, it gradually becomes clear that plague is still a very real threat. This came as quite a shock! The bacteria are constantly mutating and strains exist for which there are no known antibiotics. Given that we are all still on edge about SARS and, more recently, Bird Flu, it leads me to wonder how many other ghastly epidemics are lurking around the corner.
In addition , the number of mamals now capable of carrying the plague, is constantly increasing. "In the United States the plague bacillus has been found in some thirty-eight wild rodents, rabbits and their fleas".

The remainder of the book details the competition between two very different, though equally eminent scientists, to discover the cause, method of transmission and tratment for the plague.
Kitasato was a Japanese scientist who had trained under Koch in Germany and Yersin, a French scientist from the Pasteur Institute in Paris. I was surprised that the Japanese considered their job was done one they had isolated what they claimed to be the causal bacteria, Yersin, on the other hand took his research and started work on a cure. It was several more years futher down the line before the link between the rat, the human and the flea was made.

One final word must go to the brave scientists who risked their lives researching under constant danger of becoming sick themselves. One of Kitasato's team died of plague while working in Hong Kong. Unsure as to how the disease was spread, how could they effectively protect themselves?

It is OK
Firstly, no matter what the subtitle says, this isn't a book about science. I'm not sure how I'd describe it other than to say what it isn't. The science is barely touched upon. In hindsight this is perhaps hinted at by a lack of a bibliography or a contents page. Instead, somewhat bizarrely, weaved through the historical narrative of Yersin, Kitasato and Simond (whose contribution to the understanding of plague merited far more than the paltry few pages given over to him) is a fictional story of Mohanlal and Hetal, an Indian married couple from Surat whose lives are disrupted by plague in 1994. It seems completely incongruous and unnecessary to try to wheel in some limp human interest story by adding their fictional tale to a non-fictional historical story of scientific competition. This book just didn't hold my interest.