Invisible Empire: A short review of the book on the history of virus

 

I recently read this book by Pranay Lal, thanks to Kritika, my friend. She gifted me this book. Lal has given a fairly detailed account of the kingdom of virus. Reading this book, I remembered my conversations with another friend of mine, Mohak. Mohak and I discussed the life of a virus during the viral outbreaks, first of Nipah in Kerala, and then of Covid-19 in China.

I remember this conversation primarily because of the expression of disbelief that Mohak had on his face, when I told him that we fear viruses but they also sustain our life on the planet. It is our fallacy to assume that viruses are a lowly life form. They actually are supremely evolved to time their activities to their finding of a suitable host. For the rest of the time, they remain inactive making us believe that they are non-living entities. Also that the viruses follow the same basic principle of life -- survival, by mutation and reproduction. I hope Mohak remembers those conversations we had at India Today.

Reading Lal's Invisible Empire made me feel vindicated 😄. He seems to be a research-oriented writer, previously best known for his debut book, Indica, which gives a historical account of plants and forests on the Indian subcontinent. 

In terms of basic concepts, Lal did not surprise me while explaining the journey of the virus. But what he did was to cement my idea of a viral life with n-number of evidence. 

He cites scientific evidence to show that the humans would not have evolved the way they did had different viruses not infected them and become part of the human genome through millions of years of co-evolution.

Plant and animal kingdoms would not have been what they are but for these viruses. Oxygen-gulping organisms including the humans would not have been possible had there been no virus and bacterium. 

Lal gives a fascinating viral story of the bursting of the first economic bubble in Europe, and virus's Sanskrit connection and the Ganga's links to treatment of a range of bacterial diseases.

The book has been written in the background of Covid-19, a disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, but does not discuss the coronavirus or the pandemic much. This could be its shortcoming. It, however, breaks the myth of SARS-CoV-2 being a colourful virus. 

We all read in schools/colleges -- and for someone like me, also during the preparation for PMTs -- that we don't have the technology to know the colour of the virus because it is smaller than the wavelength of the sunrays. Still, a graphically designed photograph by American computer technicians made us believe that the crimson-specked ball was the true look of the SARS-CoV-2. Lal clears the air.

But, I think, the book is not error-free. I, for sure, can say that there is at least one critical mistake for a book telling a powerful scientific story of the virus. It says DNA bases are bound by phosphate bonds. It is the hydrogen bond that keeps them together. I think Lal either missed the point or got confused with what is called the phosphate backbone -- referring to the DNA strands of the ladder -- with the bonding between the bases.

Otherwise and overall, I will recommend this book strongly to anybody and everybody interested in virology or is open to understand the place of humans in the living world, and their association with the microbial world. For, without microbes, there would not be humans, and Charles Darwin would not be born.