Since Thomas Kuhn unveiled the concept of paradigm shifts in his landmark 1962 book, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," we look to those pivotal moments when science leaps forward: the Curies' experiments with radioactivity, the mapping of the human genome. The history of medicine and its breakthrough moments teem with outsized personalities, men (usually) who strut with scalpels and stethoscopes, steeped in their own egos and with an eager eye on Stockholm.
In "Miracle Cure," William Rosen tells the lavish story of antibiotics with the flair and skill of a seasoned novelist, portraying his characters as all-too-human, the research often fallible but occasionally transcendent. He opens with the seminal career of French chemist Louis Pasteur, who pioneered vaccines for anthrax and rabies, and also invented the eponymous procedure that filters microbes from milk. His genius was matched by a German rival, Robert Koch, who identified bacteria as causes for disease and later won the first Nobel Prize in medicine.
The two men didn't like each other, their feud aggravated by tensions between their countries.
These innovations of the late 19th century, then, set the backdrop for treatments in the 20th. Alexander Fleming, a Scottish chemist, discovered penicillin in 1928; fellow researchers noticed its therapeutic properties in the following decade. But it wasn't until World War II, in the blood-soaked aftermath of Dunkirk, that British scientists, along with American counterparts, pushed to find cures for infectious diseases.
Enter Selman Waksman. A Ukrainian-born Jew, he immigrated to the United States in his early 20s, earning a doctorate in biochemistry at the University of California before founding a lab at Rutgers.
Boosted by the statistical wizardry of his colleague Bradford Hill, Waksman unearthed numerous antibiotics with an unerring eye, particularly those found in soil samples, resulting in a Kuhn-like transformation: "In less than three years, penicillin and streptomycin had achieved more victories in the battle against infectious disease than anything in the entire history of medicine since Galen. Both were unprecedentedly powerful weapons against pathogens; but it was streptomycin that revealed a method for finding more of the same: the combination of Selman Waksman's protocol for finding antibacterial needles in haystacks made of soil, and Bradford Hill's arithmetic for revealing their clinical value."
Rosen's chronological approach gives the narrative its fluency; his wit and vivid detail make "Miracle Cure" an absorbing read. He concludes with the overuse of antibiotics and the rise of "superbugs" that may kindle fresh challenges for scientists — perhaps another "golden age" awaits us, as "Miracle Cure" deftly reveals, a triumph of science writing that deserves a broad popular audience.
Hamilton Cain is the author of "This Boy's Faith: Notes From a Southern Baptist Upbringing," and a former finalist for a National Magazine Award. He lives in Brooklyn.
