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The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic. In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of the drug that shaped modern medicine.
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.
For thousands of years, humans had sought medicines with which they could defeat contagion, and they had slowly, painstakingly, won a few battles: some vaccines to ward off disease, a handful of antitoxins. A drug or two was available that could stop parasitic diseases once they hit, tropical maladies like malaria and sleeping sickness. But the great killers of Europe, North America, and most of Asia—pneumonia, plague, tuberculosis, diphtheria, cholera, meningitis—were caused not by parasites but by bacteria, much smaller, far different microorganisms. By 1931, nothing on earth could stop a bacterial infection once it started. . . .
But all that was about to change. . . . —from The Demon Under the Microscope
From the Hardcover edition.
Every Person In the Medical Field Should Read This Book.
| Customer Rating:  | | Thomas Hager's outstanding work telling the story of how a young German soldier in WW1 made a personal vow and a life work to find a cure for infectious wounds. He, and a team of chemists at Bayer, succeeded with the discovery that the chemical Sulfanilamide could cure bacterial infection. Subsequent research by the team at Bayer, as well as French and American researchers led to the development of chemical variations of pure Sulfa that could cure a wide range of diseases never before curable. An exceedingly well written and easy to read book. I found it hard to put down as there was always something interesting at every turn of the page. Tom Hager is a very talented writer. |
A small section of medical history
| Customer Rating:  | For most of human history, microbial infections meant deformity, long-term illness, and often death. Queen Victoria almost died because of a boil, FDR, Jr. of a sinus infection. Alchemists, midwives, and scientists have been trying to find ways of treating these illnesses. But finding something that could kill an infection without also killing the host is difficult. Even after discovering how infections were spread, it wasn't possible to stop an infection. Lister's solutions to sterilize operating rooms were wonderful, but could never be taken internally without causing excruciating pain.
Hager takes the reader on the history of the first real triumph in antibiotics-sulfa drugs. This story spans 4 countries, two World Wars, and touches the lives of several heads of state. It includes everything necessary for a good coming-of-age novel, including a poor and struggling scientist still getting over the horrors of his time in combat, scientists snagging ideas from each other and learning things by accident, and several near-death experiences. This is not some boring scientific tome devoted to the chemical properties of chemotherapeutic medicines. It is the very human story of what drove dozens of scientists, several corporations, and governments to find drugs that seriously changed how infection was viewed on the battlefield. Hager displays several vignettes to demonstrate the path that sulfa drugs took from dye to medicine, and then to near-irrelevance.
This is an excellent account that explains how the new kind of pharmaceutical research started. The early 20th century showed a new direction for scientific research. Instead of the dedicated, philanthropic, hobbyist scientist happening upon discoveries (a la Louis Pasteur), companies formed with the goal of discovering chemicals that could be created, patented, and sold at huge profits. If they saved lives, all the better. And because of this trend, government regulation became a necessity. The FDA's history is presented as well, including the cases that allowed it to gain more prominence and hold more power to regulate the patent medicine market.
This book reads like a novel that travels from the germ theory of disease to penicillin resistance, leaving the reader with a better understanding of how scientific endeavors are taken on and of many of the struggles and obstacles facing pharmaceutical researchers-and the people waiting for cures.
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Review for "Demon under The Microscope"
| Customer Rating: | | A fascinating history of the discovery of the sulfa drugs. A bit of chemistry or science background makes the book all the more interesting. |
Fascinating
| Customer Rating: | | Very informative. An easy read. Once I started, I couldn't stop. Definitely an item to be in any medical history collection. |
The Story of the Sulfa Drugs
| Customer Rating: | | Within the first fifty pages this book took it's place in my top ten non-fiction works. It includes history, science, biography and business wrapped together in a fast-paced and clear manner. It's a shock to see some of the often fatal diseases our grandparents faced that today have been all but forgotten. A world where a boil, insect bite, or cut finger could result in an ugly death. The author states that this is a book about "antibiotics," he includes the sulfa drugs to be part of this class, rather than just the traditional antibiotics derived from molds. With his description the author is being a bit disingenuous, I suspect to help market his book. The book is about the sulfa drugs which were the first effective and industrially manufactured family of drugs. This entire class of drugs have been all but forgotten. The details of the discovery and use of traditional "antibiotics" is well documented. I personally might have skipped a book subtitled "The Story of the Sulfa Drugs". I am very happy to have been slightly mislead and directed to this excellent history. |
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