Editorial Review:

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.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

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... more info

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... more info

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