World Famous Comics: The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug
The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug
By: Thomas Hager Publisher: Three Rivers Press Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Three Rivers Press Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 352 Publication Date: August 28, 2007 Release Date: August 28, 2007
Product Description: 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
Review for "Demon under The Microscope" 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 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 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.
Sulfanilamide is still on the American market It's not mentioned in the book, but it is marketed as AVC Cream, most commonly placed on gauze and packed into the [...] after hysterectomy. Other dosage forms are long obsolete, but this one is still in use and probably always will be.
We hear all the time about antibiotic resistance, but most of us don't even think about what life was like before the drugs even existed. This is why home births really were safer prior to World War II, due to all the germs floating around in hospitals and NOTHING that could be done if infection struck. People, especially children like Hildegard Domagk, died from diseases we hardly bat an eye at now, and the drug got the ball rolling. I'm guessing we don't hear about it like we do with penicillin because it's not in general use any more.
This book is mostly the history of sulfanilamide, the first really effective systemic antibacterial drug. The drug had some really weird side effects, so it probably wouldn't be considered safe by modern standards. It also addresses political and business issues surrounding the drug and is a mini-bio of its discoverer, Dr. Gerhard Domagk. Who's Hildegard? His daughter, who got a deadly infection after being poked with a needle and was one of the first people who life was saved by this drug. Last I heard, she was still living and would be in her late 70s.
I purchased the book because of the chapter on the Elixir Sulfanilamide disaster of 1937, a very dark chapter in American medical history that has largely been forgotten to the point where I have never conversed with a fellow pharmacist who has ever heard of it. We associate the Massengill corporation with douches (LOL) but yes, that's who made it, and no, nobody tested the concoction to see if it was safe for human consumption before sending it out on the market, where it could be sold without a prescription. Sulfanilamide does not dissolve readily in alcohol or water, but it does dissolve in diethylene glycol (antifreeze) so that's what was used, causing the deaths of 107 of the 353 people known to have taken it. The History Channel did a program on this a few years ago called "Elixir of Death"; the author who was working on a book of this title who was prominently featured in the program died in a car accident shortly before it aired in 2003.
I also had the privilege of seeing Thomas Hager read from his book on C-Span II's Book TV. This was quite interesting to hear perspectives straight from the author.
Great read What a wonderful sweep through a seemingly simple but world changing set of discoveries. How scary the world was before antibiotics! How much the discovery detailed in this book not only changed the world of pharmacy, it impacted who becomes an M.D. and how they do their job, and so one. I highly recommend this book.
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