Parasites and Infectious Disease: Discovery by Serendipity, and Otherwise, by Gerald W. Esch. Cambridge University Press, New York, New York. 2007. 347 p. Hardcover, ISBN 978-0-521-85882-3; paperback, ISBN 978-0-521-67539-0.
After nearly two years of research, Parasites and Infectious Disease: Discovery by Serendipity, and Otherwise, by Jerry Esch, is now published. The book is in many ways a sequel to his Parasites, People and Places: Essays on Field Parasitology (2004, Cambridge University Press), and, if you loved the first one, you will surely love this one. It is much about the day-to-day life of being a parasitologist within a scientific community and the nature of interactions between us and discovery.
The book is novel in describing the professional life of those responsible for landmark advances, mostly by researchers in the United States and the United Kingdom, and trying to understand the path to their successes. Esch does this by conducting a...