The Fever Trail

Book excerpt: Literally Italian for "bad air," malaria once plagued Rome, tropical trade routes and colonial ventures into India and South America and the disease has no known antidote aside from the therapeutic effects of the "miraculous" quinine. This first book from journalist Honigsbaum is a rousing history of the search for febrifuge or, more specifically, the rare red cinchona tree, the bark from which quinine is derived.