Book Review: One in Three

One in Three: A Son's Journey into the History and Science of Cancer by Adam Wishart.

Rating: 5 of 5 STARS
Source: 2008 TBR List; recommended by Sonderella

Loved this book! I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. The combination of the story of Wishart's father's personal battle with cancer and the history of the disease made a very compelling read. Wishart alternated between personal narrative and history. I learned a great deal and was very touched by how much Wishart loved his father.

The title reflects the statistics that one person in every three will be touched by cancer. That's pretty amazing if you think about it. Even if we ourselves are not diagnosed with cancer one day, the odds are that a close friend or family member will be. I think this would be a very helpful book for anyone going through cancer personally or caring for someone else who is.

Topics include the emergence of cancer, a history of surgery, the discovery of the cell, the story of Marie Curie and radiation, causes, chemotherapy, and gene therapy.

In particular, I found the story of Marie Curie and the usage of radium most interesting. Apparently, both x-rays and radium were thought to be harbingers of the future providing limitless energy supplies:

"Radiation as the perfect mechanical response resonated with the ideas of the machine age: it seemed as if man were finally conquering nature and that speed and techology were improving human life. Artists, architects, and writers were passionate about the future possibilities of mechanization, of which medical radiation was just one aspect."

It's always easy to look back with 20-20 vision, but it's hard to read about these girls working so carelessly with radium:

"The company owned unranium mines in the Colorado plateau, using its Orange workshop to produce lumious watch faces, which were very fashionable at the time; in 1919 alone, more than two million watches were produced by U.S. Radium and their competitors. The girls enjoyed working in the light and airy workshop, where they were allowed to chatter and laugh as they mixed the paint, dipped their brushes, and licked them to keep them pointed. They also made mischeif with the glowing pait by decoratinng their fingernails and eyelids - and one girl even surprised her date with a Cheshire cat grin by painting teeth. Even when they returned home, their clothes still gave off a gentle light in the darkness of their bedrooms. Nobody had imagined that the small doses of radium in paint, about 1 part per 30,000, could be in any way harmful."

Of course, the U.S. Radium employees ended up getting sick, some of them dying from radiation sickness. Can't you just see some pretty girl smiling at her boyfriend with her teeth glowing from radium?!

Highly recommend this book. The copy I read belongs to Sondie, but I'm sure she'll let you borrow it! ;-> Once I give it back to her, that is!