Miracle Cure by William Rosen

Miracle Cure by William Rosen

The epic history of how antibiotics were born, saving millions of lives and creating a vast new industry known as Big Pharma.

As late as the 1930s, virtually no drug intended for sickness did any good; doctors could set bones, deliver babies, and offer palliative care. That all changed in less than a generation with the discovery and development of a new category of medicine known as antibiotics. By 1955, the age-old evolutionary relationship between humans and microbes had been transformed, trivializing once-deadly infections.

William Rosen captures this revolution with all its false starts, lucky surprises, and eccentric characters. He explains why, given the complex nature of bacteria--and their ability to rapidly evolve into new forms--the only way to locate and test potential antibiotic strains is by large-scale, systematic, trial-and-error experimentation. Organizing that research needs large, well-funded organizations and businesses, and so our entire scientific-industrial complex, built around the pharmaceutical company, was born.

Timely, engrossing, and eye-opening, Miracle Cure is a must-read science narrative--a drama of enormous range, combining science, technology, politics, and economics to illuminate the reasons behind one of the most dramatic changes in humanity's relationship with nature since the invention of agriculture ten thousand years ago.

For more than twenty-five years, William Rosen worked as an editor and publisher at Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and the Free Press.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780525428107
ISBN 10	0525428100
Title	Miracle Cure
Author	William Rosen
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Penguin Putnam Inc
Year published	2017-05-09
Number of pages	368
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.