So Very Small

How Humans Discovered the Microcosmos, Defeated Germs--and May Still Lose the War Against Infectious Disease

By: Thomas Levenson

Narrated by: Mike Cooper

“An elegant, wide-ranging history” (The New York Review of Books) of the centuries-long quest to discover the critical role of germs in disease thatreveals as much about human reasoning—and the pitfalls of ego—as it does about microbes.

“Levenson takes readers through an entertaining . . . journey of missed opportunities in microbiology and the eventual advances that arose in this field.”—Science

Scientists and enthusiastic amateurs first confirmed the existence of living things invisible to the human eye in the late seventeenth century. So why did it take two centuries to connect microbes to disease? As late as the Civil War in the 1860s, most soldiers who perished died not on the battlefield but of infected wounds, typhoid, and other diseases. Twenty years later, the outcome might have been different, following one of the most radical intellectual transformations in history: germ theory, the recognition that the tiniest forms of life have been humankind’s greatest killers. It was a discovery centuries in the making, and it transformed modern life and public health.

As Thomas Levenson reveals in this globe-spanning history, it has everything to do with how we see ourselves. For centuries, people in the West, believing themselves to hold God-given dominion over nature, thought too much of humanity and too little of microbes to believe they could take us down. When nineteenth-century scientists finally made the connection, life-saving methods to control infections and contain outbreaks soon followed. The next big break came with the birth of the antibiotic era in the 1930s. And yet, less than a century later, the promise of the antibiotic revolution is already receding due to years of overuse. Is our self-confidence getting the better of us again?

So Very Small follows the thread of human ingenuity and hubris across centuries—along the way peering into microscopes, spelunking down sewers, visiting army hospitals, traipsing across sheep fields, and more—to show how we came to understand the microbial environment and how little we understand ourselves. Levenson traces how and why ideas are pursued, accepted, or ignored—and hence how human habits of mind can, so often, make it terribly hard to ask the right questions.

A gripping account of a triumph of humanity, and our limitations

A fascinating account of how we had the tools to understand infectious long before we began to use them to save lives. Also an account of how our presumption that we are separate from, and above, nature impeded (and still impedes) our ability to take care of ourselves.

Very written and very well performed.

Great read!

The blend of science, history and storytelling was wonderful. This is a delight for science and history buffs alike.

good content, less would be more thouy

learned a lot.
sometimes seemed that author talked about peripheral stuff because he came across it in research, not because it mattered. things a good editor should have caught

sometimes hard to understand narrator.

An Excellent Overview

Starting this fine book I knew very little about the history of the germ theory of infectious disease. It’s purpose is to give an idea of how difficult it was for the germ theory to become dominant and the actors who promoted it to win over scientific medicine. Most of the action takes place in the later 19th century and early 20th century. Before hand no one knew what caused disease but Doctors certainly had their ideas. Almost none of them were correct or had any effect on the disease itself though they might give symptomatic relief but usually not. Lister, Pasteur and Koch provided the experiments and experience to show that germ theory wasn’t just a theory. The author discusses vaccines and antibiotics in this chronological narrative that is well written and informative. The narrator has a great voice for nonfiction and made the listening experience even more rewarding.

Loved the historical perspective of so very

An important book to be read to understand the current state of misinformed anti-VAXERS. It would be good to have an executive summary that can be shared.