Siddhartha Mukherjee. The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. (London: Fourth Estate, 2011)
“There is none” are the haunting words of the Egyptian physician Imhotep from the third millennium BC describing his inability to provide even palliative care to a woman with breast cancer. With such examples and many more from over the centuries, Siddhartha Mukherjee gives us a visceral look at instances of cancer in its various forms. The book’s subtitle truly is accurate since Mukherjee also devotes a lot of space describing just how cancers develop and metastasize.
But the book does not only focus on the disease and its spread, but also on key figures involved in the fight against the disease, including historical accounts of how various kinds of cancer treatments were developed, some accidentally, others with deliberation. The book informs the reader of victories large and small as well as of setbacks and missteps.
Mukherjee draws the reader in with brilliant prose and anecdotes from his own practice as an oncologist and these examples make the threat of cancer quite real for even a reader who has never encountered a case of cancer up close. Moreover, he provides copious end-notes for anyone keen on taking their study of the disease, its history and the war against it further. And the book ends with a clear declaration that this war is far from over as Mukherjee describes one of his patient’s final moments as she still clung to her dignity in the face of this insidious disease that was soon going to claim her.
I would recommend this book to everyone who has the stomach to bear close to five hundred pages that essentially describe a protracted war from the perspective of the currently losing side.