The Perfect Predator（悪魔の細菌）by Steffanie Strathdee & Thomas Patterson
日本語
洋書で人気のノンフィクションといえば Trevor Noah著の『Born a Crime』が有名です。ノンフィクは歴史からサイエンス系までジャンルの幅が広く、Yuval Noah Harari の著作は邦訳書としても絶大な人気を誇ります。
今回僕が読んだのは Steffanie Strathdee、Thomas Patterson著『The Perfect Predator』です。邦訳は坪子里美さん訳で『悪魔の細菌』。
『Silent Spring（沈黙の春）』において Rachel Carson は自然にとって化学薬品がどれほど危険なものかを訴えました。この本がきっかけとなり様々な規制も生まれることになりました。
近い将来、『The Perfect Predator』が多くの人に読み直される本になるのかもしれません。
洋書のノンフィクションの大きな欠点といえば、冗長な内容になりがちなところ。
日本の書籍は販売価格を抑えるためにとにかく無駄な言葉や内容を削りますが、英語で書かれる書籍は無駄に長くなりがちです。
その点で、小説のような文体で書かれているこの本は一線を画します。
サスペンス小説を読んでいるかのように読者は引き込まれるはずです。
サイエンス系のノンフィクションらしく専門用語の解説などはありますが、ストーリーの勢いをあまり落とさないよう、洋書にしては控えめに抑えられています。
本書の主役となるのが耐性菌、抗生物質、そしてファージ療法。
倒れた夫を救うために奔走する疫学者である妻。
有効な治療法を探るため最新の論文から過去の学術研究まで調べていると、解決の手がかりになりそうなものがようやく見つかり......
残された時間が刻一刻と過ぎていく中、友人も含めた多くの医療関係者、政府機関、軍、外国の研究所が協力してたった一人の命を救うために治療薬の開発に全力を注ぎます。
一人でも多くの人に手に取ってほしい、話題になってほしい本です。
English
You may have read (or at least have ever heard of) a popular nonfiction memoir book Born a Crime authored by Trevor Noah.
The Perfect Predator by Steffanie Strathdee and Thomas Patterson is also a memoir, more specifically a scientific memoir that reads like a thriller (the author actually writes in a novel narrative manner).
While I was reading this book, it kept reminding me of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, in which the author described the effects of pesticides on wildlife (plants and animals) and humans, whereas in this book the effects of antibiotics on humans.
This gripping, suspenseful medical thriller begins with two scientists' (Steffanie Strathdee and her husband Thomas Patterson) trip to Egypt, where Tom came down with a stomach bug, which turned out to be a superbug.
The Perfect Predator is a memoir of struggle to survive this superbug.
A superbug is a bacterium that is resistant to antibiotics.
Antibiotics (such as penicillin) are used in a medical setting on a daily basis to cure diseases caused by bacteria.
Antibiotics can fight certain infections by either stopping bacteria from reproducing or destroying them with a proper use.
Tom came down with a stomach bug, which was bacteria that were supposed to be treated with antibiotics.
But, what if those antibiotics are not effective to the bacteria?
These bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics are in this book called superbugs.
What is so scary about superbugs?
They were not originally resistant to antibiotics.
They became resistant.
We measure human evolution in millions of years; bacteria do it in minutes.
Strathdee, Steffanie; Patterson, Thomas. The Perfect Predator: A Scientist's Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug: A Memoir (p.100). Hachette Books. Kindle 版.
Left unchecked, an estimated 10 million people were going to die from superbug infections each year by 2050. The former director-general of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, had recently stated that we were on the cusp of a post-antibiotic era, where a simple scrape could lead to limb amputation or death.
Strathdee, Steffanie; Patterson, Thomas. The Perfect Predator: A Scientist's Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug: A Memoir (p.128). Hachette Books. Kindle 版.
dystopian future of the post-antibiotic age.
Strathdee, Steffanie; Patterson, Thomas. The Perfect Predator: A Scientist's Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug: A Memoir (p.130). Hachette Books. Kindle 版.
So, as the conventional antibiotics had not worked against Tom's superbug, they had to find an alternate way to kill the bug. They needed a new game changer.
And they found it, which was...
Phage therapy.
I really liked the book. I was absolutely absorbed into this real gripping story.
Kudos to this phage turner book.
