The Emperor Of All Maladies Essay

The Emperor of All Maladies Book Review

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee is an in-depth analysis of the history of cancer. The book discusses the beginning stages of cancer when it was merely a confusing phenomenon for doctors that occurred for over a century. For example, "Childhood leukemia had fascinated, confused, and frustrated doctors for more than a century. The disease had been analyzed, classified, sub-classified, and divided meticulously” (Mukherjee 12). Mukherjee is a passionate physician and displays this in his work as a cancer researcher. Mukherjee book consists of his professional experiences working at the Dana-Farber

Cancer Institute where he did his oncology fellowship.

The book begins with a narrative of cancer relating back to its history. Cancer in the book is discussed as a confusing, complex disease that was hard to decode by doctors for over a century. Mukherjee gives rich details about the way people assessed breast cancer in the nineteenth century discussing how radiation and chemotherapy were once used before modern times. Further, into the book, Mukherjee shares with personal experience working in the field of

medicine. In this book review, I will summarize Mukherjee intent, reasoning, and main points and evaluate the book’s strengths and weaknesses.
Mukherjee thesis for the book is to discuss the history of cancer, explain the biography of cancer and to provide details on the background of his career and experience trying to understand cancer and its complexity. For example, Mukherjee starts the book with Sidney Farber, who specialized in children diseases. Farber was obsessed with studying cancer and its complexity. Then Mukherjee continues the story of Farber discussing how his obsession led to discovering “a penicillin for cancer” (Mukherjee 114). As Dusty Rhoads an oncologist at Memorial Hospital for Cancer described it.
As described above, Mukherjee main argument for writing this book is to shed light on the trial and tribulation of cancer in regards to discoveries, setbacks, victories and deaths dating back centuries. Throughout the book, Mukherjee provides readers with an abundance of history and knowledge of cancer. For example, he discusses individuals such as Sydney Farber and Mary Lasker and their battles to take the issues of cancer research and cures to key individuals in the Senate and House of Representatives in Washington, D.C, to Robert Weinberg and Howard Temin and their quests to understand the biology behind the disease.
Not only does Mukherjee discuss the history of cancer, he provides information on the fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. For example, Mukherjee recalls a time during his fellowship when he interacted with a patient named Germaine Berne. He discussed how she was given a death sentence because of her debilitating cancer which turned out to be a rare kind of cancer called gastrointestinal stromal tumor. As Mukherjee proceeds, he introduces how the use of modern day technology helped save the life of Berne because of a blog she found that was a forum for other terminally ill cancer patient who shared and discussed new treatment that could potentially save their life. And it was on the blog where Berne found a new trial drug called Gleevec which reversed her symptoms and she recovered. However, her body evenly rejected Gleevec and she passed away at ease knowing that her life was extended six years and she made amends with her family. Also, Mukherjee discusses the years of treatment and procures that were used to treat cancer. Since Mukherjee discusses the past treatments for cancer this is a connection to global health because researchers can use this information to supplement their research to advance modern medicine "In the decade since the discovery of Gleevec, twenty-four novel drugs have been listed by the National Cancer Institute as cancer-targeted therapies. Dozens more are in development. The twenty-four drugs have been shown to be effective against lung, breast, colon, and prostate cancers, sarcomas, lymphomas, and leukemias" (Mukherjee 443). With this knowledge, suffers who have cancer can look forward to therapies that are being implemented today and in the future that will help regulate the progression of their cancer.
Mukherjee does a phenomenal job writing The Emperor of All Maladies.

The words in the book are so fluid that readers are capable of visualizing a clear mental picture of his experiences with his patients and the situations they went through dealing with cancer. In addition, this book, notably comes to life after page 304. This is where Mukherjee added illustrations of situations involving cancer dating back to the medieval description of cancer in 2500 BC. There were also illustrations in the 18th century and 19th century of how breast cancer was treated up until the 1990’s when Barbara Bradfield became the first patient to be treated with the drug Herceptin which attacks breast cancer cells. With the supplementation of illustrations in the book, readers can visually see how thing occurred centuries

ago.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Mukherjee book. He seamlessly describes and expresses his experience working with cancer in a way for non-professionals to understand and fully grasp what cancer is and the damaging effects it has. Even though I liked how Mukherjee shared his personal stories of the patients he knew who suffered from cancer. However, Mukherjee could have ended the book with a summary of his experience as a whole. Oppose to ending it with a patient’s story.
To conclude, this book provided valuable information on the “fight against cancer” and its future. In addition, the author does an excellent job assessing the past of cancer in order to combat the future of it. Mukherjee shares rich history, current, and future information about cancer that will help researchers and lay people understand and learn about cancer. By the end of the book, Mukherjee has surpassed explaining the history of cancer but gave readers a new outlook on cancer and how it can affect the life of a person suffering from the ghastly disease. Overall, I strongly recommend this book to anyone fascinated in learning about cancer.