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  • Published: 15 February 2008
  • ISBN: 9781400082148
  • Imprint: Crown
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $29.99
Categories:

The Demon Under the Microscope

From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug





Written by veteran science and medical writer Thomas Hager, THE DEMON UNDER THE MICROSCOPE is a fascinating scientific tale with all the excitement and intrigue of a great suspense novel. For readers of popular science, medical mysteries and anyone who is curious about how the face of medicine changed in the 20th century thanks to antibiotics.

In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of sulfa, the first antibiotic and the drug that shaped modern medicine.

The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. Sulfa saved millions of lives—among them those of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr.—but its real effects are even more far reaching. Sulfa changed the way new drugs were developed, approved, and sold; transformed the way doctors treated patients; and ushered in the era of modern medicine. The very concept that chemicals created in a lab could cure disease revolutionized medicine, taking it from the treatment of symptoms and discomfort to the eradication of the root cause of illness.

A strange and colorful story, The Demon Under the Microscope illuminates the vivid characters, corporate strategy, individual idealism, careful planning, lucky breaks, cynicism, heroism, greed, hard work, and the central (though mistaken) idea that brought sulfa to the world. This is a fascinating scientific tale with all the excitement and intrigue of a great suspense novel.

  • Published: 15 February 2008
  • ISBN: 9781400082148
  • Imprint: Crown
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $29.99
Categories:

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Praise for The Demon Under the Microscope

"A grand story, and Hager tells it well...One can easily imagine that like Microbe Hunters before it, inspiring in young idealistic readers the enthusiasm for mediacal research and the zeal for healing that generates great physicians."--Wall Street Journal
"Compelling and horrifying...Hager tells the sulfa saga in vivid and compelling detail. In boardroom and battlefield, in laboratory and sickroom, he has the ability to zero in on all the inherent drama and color to present an indelible portrait."--Los Angeles Times



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