The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug
 
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From Publishers Weekly Modern bacteriology was born on the battlefields of WWI, where bacteria-rich trenches added to the toll of millions of soldiers killed. Not coincidentally, the search for anything that would significantly diminish the deadly power of disease largely occurred between the world wars, mostly in Germany. Gerhard Domagk and his colleagues at Bayer (a subsidiary of I.G. Farben) worked feverishly to identify which microscopic squiggles might render humankind forever safe from malaria and tuberculosis. The answer, discovered in 1932, turned out to be sulfa drugs, the precursors to modern antibiotics. Hager, a biographer of Linus Pauling, does a remarkable job of transforming material fit for a biology graduate seminar into highly entertaining reading. He knows that lay readers need plenty of personality and local color, and his story is rich with both. This yarn prefigures the modern rush for corporate pharma patents; it is testament to Hager's skill that the inherently unsexy process of finding the chemicals that might help conquer strep is as exciting as an account of the hunt for a Russian submarine. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From School Library Journal Adult/High School–An exciting, fast-paced read, Demon opens with a grisly scene at Tripler General Hospital in Hawaii as ambulances, trucks, and private cars drop off the injured from Pearl Harbor. Men who were wounded, dismembered, and literally roasted in the harbor oil fires from exploding ships were tended to on the lawns outside the hospital and in three operating rooms that ran continuously for 11 hours. Not a single patient died due to infection, in dramatic contrast to World War I, when it was estimated that more soldiers died of infection than in combat. What was the difference? Sulfa drugs–antibiotics. The story of their discovery reads much like a suspense novel, set against the backdrop of World War I trench warfare and political intrigue in Europe leading up to World War II. The scientific leaders in medical research, Gerhard Domagk at Bayer, Sir Almroth Wright's group The Lords, and Ernest Fourneau at the Pasteur Institute, conducted meticulous work and experienced accidental discoveries that advanced medical procedures and determined the protocols for drug testing. Great reading both for curriculum support and general interest.–Brigeen Radoicich, Fresno County Office of Education, CA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Submitted On:

09 Sep 2007

File Author:

Hager, Thomas

File Size:

16.18 MB