-
The Demon Under The Microscope
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $18.05
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Sulfa saved millions of lives, among them, Winston Churchill's and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr.'s, but its real effects have been even more far reaching. Sulfa changed the way new drugs were developed, approved, and sold. It transformed the way doctors treated patients. And it 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 vibrant story, The Demon Under the Microscope illuminates the colorful characters, corporate strategy, individual idealism, careful planning, lucky breaks, cynicism, heroism, greed, hard work, and 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.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Alchemy of Air
- A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.
-
-
Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
-
-
Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
-
Ten Drugs
- How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Thomas Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.
-
-
Engrossing to physicians & lay persons alike
- By C. White on 03-08-19
By: Thomas Hager
-
Electric City
- The Lost History of Ford and Edison's American Utopia
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the Roaring Twenties, two of the most revered and influential men in American business proposed to transform one of the country’s poorest regions into a dream technological metropolis, a shining paradise of small farms, giant factories, and sparkling laboratories. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s “Detroit of the South” would be 10 times the size of Manhattan, powered by renewable energy, and free of air pollution. And it would reshape American society.
-
-
Feels incomplete
- By M on 12-12-23
By: Thomas Hager
-
The Triumph of Seeds
- How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses & Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History
- By: Thor Hanson
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life, supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and the humble peppercorn drove the Age of Discovery, so did coffee beans help fuel the Enlightenment and cottonseed help spark the Industrial Revolution. And from the fall of Rome to the Arab Spring, the fate of nations continues to hinge on the seeds of a Middle Eastern grass known as wheat.
-
-
Delightfully simplistic!
- By Adrian on 03-30-16
By: Thor Hanson
-
Biography of Resistance
- The Epic Battle Between People and Pathogens
- By: Muhammad H. Zaman
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 2016, a woman in Nevada became the first known case in the US of a person who died of an infection resistant to every antibiotic available. Her death is the worst nightmare of infectious disease doctors and public health professionals. While bacteria live within us and are essential for our health, some strains can kill us. As bacteria continue to mutate, becoming increasingly resistant to known antibiotics, we are likely to face a public health crisis of unimaginable proportions.
-
-
Excellent read for a complicated issue
- By Anonymous User on 05-03-20
-
The Alchemy of Air
- A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.
-
-
Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
-
-
Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
-
Ten Drugs
- How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Thomas Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.
-
-
Engrossing to physicians & lay persons alike
- By C. White on 03-08-19
By: Thomas Hager
-
Electric City
- The Lost History of Ford and Edison's American Utopia
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the Roaring Twenties, two of the most revered and influential men in American business proposed to transform one of the country’s poorest regions into a dream technological metropolis, a shining paradise of small farms, giant factories, and sparkling laboratories. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s “Detroit of the South” would be 10 times the size of Manhattan, powered by renewable energy, and free of air pollution. And it would reshape American society.
-
-
Feels incomplete
- By M on 12-12-23
By: Thomas Hager
-
The Triumph of Seeds
- How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses & Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History
- By: Thor Hanson
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life, supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and the humble peppercorn drove the Age of Discovery, so did coffee beans help fuel the Enlightenment and cottonseed help spark the Industrial Revolution. And from the fall of Rome to the Arab Spring, the fate of nations continues to hinge on the seeds of a Middle Eastern grass known as wheat.
-
-
Delightfully simplistic!
- By Adrian on 03-30-16
By: Thor Hanson
-
Biography of Resistance
- The Epic Battle Between People and Pathogens
- By: Muhammad H. Zaman
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 2016, a woman in Nevada became the first known case in the US of a person who died of an infection resistant to every antibiotic available. Her death is the worst nightmare of infectious disease doctors and public health professionals. While bacteria live within us and are essential for our health, some strains can kill us. As bacteria continue to mutate, becoming increasingly resistant to known antibiotics, we are likely to face a public health crisis of unimaginable proportions.
-
-
Excellent read for a complicated issue
- By Anonymous User on 05-03-20
-
The Invention of Surgery
- A History of Modern Medicine: From the Renaissance to the Implant Revolution
- By: David Schneider MD
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 23 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written by an author with plenty of experience holding a scalpel, Dr. David Schneider's in-depth biography is an encompassing history of the practice that has leapt forward over the centuries from the dangerous guesswork of ancient Greek physicians through the world-changing implant revolution of the 20th century.
-
-
Yup, this is the one you’re looking for...
- By richard clark on 07-19-20
-
The Song of the Cell
- An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of The Emperor of All Maladies, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and The Gene, a #1 New York Times bestseller, comes his most spectacular book yet, an exploration of medicine and our radical new ability to manipulate cells. Rich with Mukherjee’s revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer’s exploration of what it means to be human.
-
-
Beyond Words Wonderful
- By Lynn on 11-27-22
-
Quackery
- A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
- By: Lydia Kang, Nate Pedersen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine - yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison - was dosed like Viagra. Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of medical misfires and malpractices.
-
-
Computer-generated Narrator. Dated Humour.
- By Nemo on 12-28-18
By: Lydia Kang, and others
-
Emma
- An Audible Original Drama
- By: Jane Austen, Anna Lea - adaptation
- Narrated by: Emma Thompson, Joanne Froggatt, Isabella Inchbald, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Austen wrote, 'I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like' and thus introduces the handsome, clever, rich - and flawed, Emma Woodhouse. Emma is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage; nothing however delights her more than matchmaking her fellow residents of Highbury. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected.
-
-
Background sonds RUINED this
- By Sandra Dodd on 09-09-18
By: Jane Austen, and others
-
The Disappearing Spoon
- And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
- By: Sam Kean
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reporter Sam Kean reveals the periodic table as it’s never been seen before. Not only is it one of man's crowning scientific achievements, it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.
-
-
Great Book, Great Narration, But...
- By Henny Button on 09-18-10
By: Sam Kean
-
The Great Influenza
- The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
- By: John M. Barry
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the winter of 1918, at the height of World War I, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision between modern science and epidemic disease.
-
-
Great book but very disturbing...
- By Tim on 01-15-09
By: John M. Barry
-
The Gene
- An Intimate History
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The extraordinary Siddhartha Mukherjee has written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.
-
-
It's a Wonderful Book
- By JKC on 06-02-16
-
The Butchering Art
- Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
- By: Lindsey Fitzharris
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of 19th-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters - no place for the squeamish - and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. They were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. A young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.
-
-
Not one boring moment!
- By WRWF on 12-22-17
-
Nine Pints
- A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood
- By: Rose George
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blood carries life, yet the sight of it makes people faint. It is a waste product and a commodity pricier than oil. It can save lives and transmit deadly infections. Each one of us has roughly nine pints of it, yet many don’t even know their own blood type. And for all its ubiquitousness, the few tablespoons of blood discharged by 800 million women are still regarded as taboo: menstruation is perhaps the single most demonized biological event.
-
-
Author goes on long unnecessary tangents
- By Jonathan Malzone on 03-03-19
By: Rose George
-
Get Well Soon
- History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
- By: Jennifer Wright
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn't stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon 34 more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-19th-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome - a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure.
-
-
Didn't know syphilis could be so fascinating.
- By Kindle Customer on 02-09-17
By: Jennifer Wright
-
Microbe Hunters
- The Classic Book on the Major Discoveries of the Microscopic World
- By: Paul de Kruif
- Narrated by: Michael Quinlan
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This science classic by Paul de Kruif chronicles the pioneering bacteriological work of the first scientists to see and learn from the microscopic world. Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters is a timeless dramatization of the scientists, bacteriologists, doctors, and medical technicians who discovered microbes and invented the vaccines to counter them.
-
-
Somewhat dated
- By eve on 05-14-18
By: Paul de Kruif
-
Viruses, Plagues, and History
- Past, Present, and Future
- By: Michael B. A. Oldstone
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of viruses and humanity is a story of fear and ignorance, of grief and heartbreak, and of great bravery and sacrifice. Michael Oldstone tells all these stories as he illuminates the history of the devastating diseases that have tormented humanity, focusing mostly on the most famous viruses. For this revised edition, Oldstone includes discussions of new viruses like SARS, bird flu, virally caused cancers, chronic wasting disease, and West Nile. Viruses, Plagues, and History paints a sweeping portrait of humanity's long-standing conflict with our unseen viral enemies.
-
-
very detailed, but very statistical
- By ekhensel15 on 01-12-19
Critic reviews
"Highly entertaining." (Publishers Weekly)
Related to this topic
-
The Great Influenza
- The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
- By: John M. Barry
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the winter of 1918, at the height of World War I, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision between modern science and epidemic disease.
-
-
Great book but very disturbing...
- By Tim on 01-15-09
By: John M. Barry
-
The Remedy
- Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis
- By: Thomas Goetz
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1875, tuberculosis was the deadliest disease in the world, accountable for a third of all deaths. A diagnosis of TB - often called consumption - was a death sentence. Then, in a triumph of medical science, a German doctor named Robert Koch deployed an unprecedented scientific rigor to discover the bacteria that caused TB. Koch soon embarked on a remedy - a remedy that would be his undoing. When Koch announced his cure for consumption, Arthur Conan Doyle, then a small-town doctor in England and sometime writer, went to Berlin to cover the event.
-
-
thought-provoking
- By Jean on 07-06-14
By: Thomas Goetz
-
Influenza
- The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic
- By: Dr. Jeremy Brown
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the 100th anniversary of the devastating pandemic of 1918, Jeremy Brown, a veteran ER doctor, explores the troubling, terrifying, and complex history of the flu virus, from the origins of the Great Flu that killed millions, to vexing questions such as: are we prepared for the next epidemic, should you get a flu shot, and how close are we to finding a cure?
-
-
Important read
- By Kathryn C. on 12-21-18
By: Dr. Jeremy Brown
-
Polio
- An American Story
- By: David M. Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This comprehensive and gripping narrative, which received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for history, covers all the challenges, characters, and controversies in America's relentless struggle against polio. Funded by philanthropy and grassroots contributions, Salk's killed-virus vaccine (1954) and Sabin's live-virus vaccine (1961) began to eradicate this dreaded disease.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-22-08
-
Flu
- The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It
- By: Gina Kolata
- Narrated by: Gina Kolata
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Feeling feverish, tired, or achy? Listening to Gina Kolata's engrossing account of the 1918 Influenza epidemic is sure to give you the chills. A gripping work of science writing, Flu addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and considers what can be done to prevent it.
-
-
overexcited
- By Marilyn on 07-23-03
By: Gina Kolata
-
Ten Drugs
- How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Thomas Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.
-
-
Engrossing to physicians & lay persons alike
- By C. White on 03-08-19
By: Thomas Hager
-
The Great Influenza
- The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
- By: John M. Barry
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the winter of 1918, at the height of World War I, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision between modern science and epidemic disease.
-
-
Great book but very disturbing...
- By Tim on 01-15-09
By: John M. Barry
-
The Remedy
- Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis
- By: Thomas Goetz
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1875, tuberculosis was the deadliest disease in the world, accountable for a third of all deaths. A diagnosis of TB - often called consumption - was a death sentence. Then, in a triumph of medical science, a German doctor named Robert Koch deployed an unprecedented scientific rigor to discover the bacteria that caused TB. Koch soon embarked on a remedy - a remedy that would be his undoing. When Koch announced his cure for consumption, Arthur Conan Doyle, then a small-town doctor in England and sometime writer, went to Berlin to cover the event.
-
-
thought-provoking
- By Jean on 07-06-14
By: Thomas Goetz
-
Influenza
- The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic
- By: Dr. Jeremy Brown
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the 100th anniversary of the devastating pandemic of 1918, Jeremy Brown, a veteran ER doctor, explores the troubling, terrifying, and complex history of the flu virus, from the origins of the Great Flu that killed millions, to vexing questions such as: are we prepared for the next epidemic, should you get a flu shot, and how close are we to finding a cure?
-
-
Important read
- By Kathryn C. on 12-21-18
By: Dr. Jeremy Brown
-
Polio
- An American Story
- By: David M. Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This comprehensive and gripping narrative, which received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for history, covers all the challenges, characters, and controversies in America's relentless struggle against polio. Funded by philanthropy and grassroots contributions, Salk's killed-virus vaccine (1954) and Sabin's live-virus vaccine (1961) began to eradicate this dreaded disease.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-22-08
-
Flu
- The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It
- By: Gina Kolata
- Narrated by: Gina Kolata
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Feeling feverish, tired, or achy? Listening to Gina Kolata's engrossing account of the 1918 Influenza epidemic is sure to give you the chills. A gripping work of science writing, Flu addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and considers what can be done to prevent it.
-
-
overexcited
- By Marilyn on 07-23-03
By: Gina Kolata
-
Ten Drugs
- How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Thomas Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.
-
-
Engrossing to physicians & lay persons alike
- By C. White on 03-08-19
By: Thomas Hager
-
The Family That Couldn't Sleep
- A Medical Mystery
- By: D.T. Max
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 200 years, a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. What these strange conditions share is their cause: prions.
-
-
A great scientific mystery
- By David on 11-04-06
By: D.T. Max
-
The Secret History of the War on Cancer
- By: Devra Davis Ph.D.
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 19 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The War on Cancer was run by leaders of industries that made cancer-causing products and sometimes also profited from drugs and technologies for finding and treating the disease. Filled with compelling personalities and never-before-revealed information, The Secret History of the War on Cancer shows how we began fighting the wrong war, with the wrong weapons, against the wrong enemies, a legacy that persists to this day.
-
-
Silly Book
- By Adam Smith on 12-24-14
-
The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl
- How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis
- By: Arthur Allen
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few diseases are more gruesome than typhus. Transmitted by body lice, it afflicts the dispossessed - refugees, soldiers, and ghettoized peoples - causing hallucinations, terrible headaches, boiling fever, and often death. The disease plagued the German army on the Eastern Front and left the Reich desperate for a vaccine. For this they turned to the brilliant and eccentric Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl.
-
-
An Unforgettable book
- By Jean on 09-01-14
By: Arthur Allen
-
Bellevue
- Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital
- By: David Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Oshinsky, whose last book, Polio: An American Story, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, chronicles the history of America's oldest hospital and in so doing also charts the rise of New York to the nation's preeminent city, the path of American medicine from butchery and quackery to a professional and scientific endeavor, and the growth of a civic institution.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Jean on 12-14-16
By: David Oshinsky
-
Splendid Solution
- Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio
- By: Jeffrey Kluger
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Salk became a cultural hero and icon for a whole generation. Now, at the fiftieth anniversary of the first national vaccination program, and as humanity is tantalizingly close to eradicating polio worldwide, comes this unforgettable chronicle. Salk's work was an unparalleled achievement, and it makes for a magnificent listen.
-
-
Excellent book
- By Tim on 08-10-06
By: Jeffrey Kluger
-
Beating Back the Devil
- By: Maryn McKenna
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The universal instinct is to run from an outbreak of disease. These doctors run toward it. They always keep a bag packed. They seldom have more than 24 hours before they are dispatched. They are told only their country of destination and the epidemic they will tackle when they get there.
-
-
Interesting Stuff - Only criticism is pacing
- By Tim on 07-23-05
By: Maryn McKenna
-
The Pandemic Century
- One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris
- By: Mark Honigsbaum
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing catastrophic outbreaks of infectious disease. Yet despite a century of medical progress, viral and bacterial disasters continue to take us by surprise, inciting panic and dominating news cycles. From the Spanish flu to the 1924 outbreak of pneumonic plague in Los Angeles to the 1930 "parrot fever" pandemic, through the more recent SARS, Ebola, and Zika epidemics, the last one hundred years have been marked by a succession of unanticipated pandemic alarms.
-
-
Pretty good
- By Baz 12345 on 04-03-20
By: Mark Honigsbaum
-
The Moth in the Iron Lung
- A Biography of Polio
- By: Forrest Maready
- Narrated by: Forrest Maready
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A fascinating account of the world’s most famous disease - polio - told as you have never heard it before. Epidemics of paralysis began to rage in the early 1900s, seemingly out of nowhere. Doctors, parents, and health officials were at a loss to explain why this formerly unheard-of disease began paralyzing so many children. Why did this disease start to become such a horrible problem during the late 1800s? Why did it affect children more often than adults? Why was it originally called teething paralysis by mothers and their doctors?
-
-
Root Cause
- By Circlekay1 Gulfport MS on 10-24-19
By: Forrest Maready
-
Asleep
- The Forgotten Epidemic That Became Medicine’s Greatest Mystery
- By: Molly Caldwell Crosby
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1918, a world war raged, and a lethal strain of influenza circled the globe. In the midst of all this death, a bizarre disease appeared in Europe. Eventually known as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, it spread worldwide, leaving millions dead or locked in institutions. Then, in 1927, it disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. Asleep, set in 1920s and '30s New York, follows a group of neurologists through hospitals and asylums as they try to solve this epidemic and treat its victims - who learned the worst fate was not dying of it, but surviving it.
-
-
Scary, and still unsolved, medical mystery
- By joyce on 12-14-14
-
The Butchering Art
- Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
- By: Lindsey Fitzharris
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of 19th-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters - no place for the squeamish - and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. They were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. A young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.
-
-
Not one boring moment!
- By WRWF on 12-22-17
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
-
-
Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
-
King of Hearts
- The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart Surgery
- By: G. Wayne Miller
- Narrated by: Patrick Cullen
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
G. Wayne Miller has dramatically and meticulously reconstructed an amazing true story: how a group of renegade Minnesota surgeons, led by Dr. Walt Lillehei, made medical history by becoming the first doctors to operate deep inside the human heart.
-
-
Loved every minute
- By Brian on 02-05-08
By: G. Wayne Miller
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Alchemy of Air
- A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.
-
-
Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
-
Ten Drugs
- How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Thomas Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.
-
-
Engrossing to physicians & lay persons alike
- By C. White on 03-08-19
By: Thomas Hager
-
Electric City
- The Lost History of Ford and Edison's American Utopia
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the Roaring Twenties, two of the most revered and influential men in American business proposed to transform one of the country’s poorest regions into a dream technological metropolis, a shining paradise of small farms, giant factories, and sparkling laboratories. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s “Detroit of the South” would be 10 times the size of Manhattan, powered by renewable energy, and free of air pollution. And it would reshape American society.
-
-
Feels incomplete
- By M on 12-12-23
By: Thomas Hager
-
Strange Medicine
- A Shocking History of Real Medical Practices Through the Ages
- By: Nathan Belofsky
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now published in five languages, Strange Medicine casts a gimlet eye on the practice of medicine through the ages that highlights the most dubious ideas, bizarre treatments, and biggest blunders. From bad science and oafish behavior to stomach-turning procedures that hurt more than helped, Strange Medicine presents strange but true facts and an honor roll of doctors, scientists, and dreamers who inadvertently turned the clock of medicine backward.
By: Nathan Belofsky
-
Blood and Guts
- A History of Surgery
- By: Richard Hollingham
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today, astonishing surgical breakthroughs are making limb transplants, face transplants, and a host of other previously undreamed-of operations possible. But getting here has not been a simple story of medical progress. In Blood and Guts, veteran science writer Richard Hollingham weaves a compelling narrative from the key moments in surgical history. We have a ringside seat in the operating theater of University College Hospital in London as world-renowned Victorian surgeon Robert Liston performs a remarkable amputation in 30 seconds - from first cut to final stitch.
-
-
I love this book!
- By Kristin on 08-25-19
-
Miracle Cure
- The Creation of Antibiotics and the Birth of Modern Medicine
- By: William Rosen
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As late as the 1930s, virtually no drug intended for sickness did any good; doctors could set bones, deliver babies, and offer palliative care. That all changed in less than a generation with the discovery and development of a new category of medicine known as antibiotics. By 1955 the age-old evolutionary relationship between humans and microbes had been transformed, trivializing once-deadly infections.
-
-
Excellence
- By xar adelberg on 09-18-17
By: William Rosen
-
The Alchemy of Air
- A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.
-
-
Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
-
Ten Drugs
- How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Thomas Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.
-
-
Engrossing to physicians & lay persons alike
- By C. White on 03-08-19
By: Thomas Hager
-
Electric City
- The Lost History of Ford and Edison's American Utopia
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the Roaring Twenties, two of the most revered and influential men in American business proposed to transform one of the country’s poorest regions into a dream technological metropolis, a shining paradise of small farms, giant factories, and sparkling laboratories. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s “Detroit of the South” would be 10 times the size of Manhattan, powered by renewable energy, and free of air pollution. And it would reshape American society.
-
-
Feels incomplete
- By M on 12-12-23
By: Thomas Hager
-
Strange Medicine
- A Shocking History of Real Medical Practices Through the Ages
- By: Nathan Belofsky
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now published in five languages, Strange Medicine casts a gimlet eye on the practice of medicine through the ages that highlights the most dubious ideas, bizarre treatments, and biggest blunders. From bad science and oafish behavior to stomach-turning procedures that hurt more than helped, Strange Medicine presents strange but true facts and an honor roll of doctors, scientists, and dreamers who inadvertently turned the clock of medicine backward.
By: Nathan Belofsky
-
Blood and Guts
- A History of Surgery
- By: Richard Hollingham
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today, astonishing surgical breakthroughs are making limb transplants, face transplants, and a host of other previously undreamed-of operations possible. But getting here has not been a simple story of medical progress. In Blood and Guts, veteran science writer Richard Hollingham weaves a compelling narrative from the key moments in surgical history. We have a ringside seat in the operating theater of University College Hospital in London as world-renowned Victorian surgeon Robert Liston performs a remarkable amputation in 30 seconds - from first cut to final stitch.
-
-
I love this book!
- By Kristin on 08-25-19
-
Miracle Cure
- The Creation of Antibiotics and the Birth of Modern Medicine
- By: William Rosen
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As late as the 1930s, virtually no drug intended for sickness did any good; doctors could set bones, deliver babies, and offer palliative care. That all changed in less than a generation with the discovery and development of a new category of medicine known as antibiotics. By 1955 the age-old evolutionary relationship between humans and microbes had been transformed, trivializing once-deadly infections.
-
-
Excellence
- By xar adelberg on 09-18-17
By: William Rosen
-
Polio
- An American Story
- By: David M. Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This comprehensive and gripping narrative, which received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for history, covers all the challenges, characters, and controversies in America's relentless struggle against polio. Funded by philanthropy and grassroots contributions, Salk's killed-virus vaccine (1954) and Sabin's live-virus vaccine (1961) began to eradicate this dreaded disease.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-22-08
-
The Panic Virus
- A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear
- By: Seth Mnookin
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Panic Virus is a gripping scientific detective story about how grassroots radicals, snake-oil salesmen, and cynical journalists have perpetrated the biggest health-scare hoax of all time. It explores what happens when the media treats all viewpoints as equally valid, regardless of facts, from parents who are convinced that vaccines caused their children's autism to right-wing radicals who believe that climate change is a myth
-
-
Incredible thorough journey
- By Rachel Dewald on 03-22-11
By: Seth Mnookin
-
Asleep
- The Forgotten Epidemic That Became Medicine’s Greatest Mystery
- By: Molly Caldwell Crosby
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1918, a world war raged, and a lethal strain of influenza circled the globe. In the midst of all this death, a bizarre disease appeared in Europe. Eventually known as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, it spread worldwide, leaving millions dead or locked in institutions. Then, in 1927, it disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. Asleep, set in 1920s and '30s New York, follows a group of neurologists through hospitals and asylums as they try to solve this epidemic and treat its victims - who learned the worst fate was not dying of it, but surviving it.
-
-
Scary, and still unsolved, medical mystery
- By joyce on 12-14-14
-
The Ghost Map
- By: Steven Johnson
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is a thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London and a brilliant exploration of how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease, cities, science, and the modern world.
-
-
It was okay until the end
- By Matthew Groom on 12-04-08
By: Steven Johnson
-
The Family That Couldn't Sleep
- A Medical Mystery
- By: D.T. Max
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 200 years, a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. What these strange conditions share is their cause: prions.
-
-
A great scientific mystery
- By David on 11-04-06
By: D.T. Max
-
Influenza
- The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic
- By: Dr. Jeremy Brown
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the 100th anniversary of the devastating pandemic of 1918, Jeremy Brown, a veteran ER doctor, explores the troubling, terrifying, and complex history of the flu virus, from the origins of the Great Flu that killed millions, to vexing questions such as: are we prepared for the next epidemic, should you get a flu shot, and how close are we to finding a cure?
-
-
Important read
- By Kathryn C. on 12-21-18
By: Dr. Jeremy Brown
-
Quantum Space
- Loop Quantum Gravity and the Search for the Structure of Space, Time, and the Universe
- By: Jim Baggott
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today we are blessed with two extraordinarily successful theories of physics. The first is Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which describes the large-scale behavior of matter in a curved spacetime. The second is quantum mechanics. This theory describes the properties and behavior of matter and radiation at their smallest scales.
-
-
Interesting but not Convincing
- By Michael on 10-08-19
By: Jim Baggott
-
Viruses, Plagues, and History
- Past, Present, and Future
- By: Michael B. A. Oldstone
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of viruses and humanity is a story of fear and ignorance, of grief and heartbreak, and of great bravery and sacrifice. Michael Oldstone tells all these stories as he illuminates the history of the devastating diseases that have tormented humanity, focusing mostly on the most famous viruses. For this revised edition, Oldstone includes discussions of new viruses like SARS, bird flu, virally caused cancers, chronic wasting disease, and West Nile. Viruses, Plagues, and History paints a sweeping portrait of humanity's long-standing conflict with our unseen viral enemies.
-
-
very detailed, but very statistical
- By ekhensel15 on 01-12-19
-
Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses
- From the Plague of Athens to COVID-19
- By: Heather E. Quinlan
- Narrated by: Samara Naeymi
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It can come in waves - like tidal waves. It changes societies. It disrupts life. It ends lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives. Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts.
-
-
Somewhat elemental
- By Bertha Watkins on 10-23-21
-
The Butchering Art
- Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
- By: Lindsey Fitzharris
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of 19th-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters - no place for the squeamish - and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. They were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. A young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.
-
-
Not one boring moment!
- By WRWF on 12-22-17
-
The Drug Hunters
- The Improbable Quest to Discover New Medicines
- By: Donald R. Kirsch PhD, Ogi Ogas PhD
- Narrated by: James Foster
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The search to find medicines is as old as disease, which is to say as old as the human race. Through serendipity - by chewing, brewing, and snorting - some Neolithic souls discovered opium, alcohol, snakeroot, juniper, frankincense, and other helpful substances. Ötzi the Iceman, the 5,000-year-old hunter frozen in the Italian Alps, was found to have whipworms in his intestines and Bronze Age medicine, a worm-killing birch fungus, knotted to his leggings.
-
-
Aargh!
- By Curmud the prof on 05-20-17
By: Donald R. Kirsch PhD, and others
-
The Disappearing Spoon
- And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
- By: Sam Kean
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reporter Sam Kean reveals the periodic table as it’s never been seen before. Not only is it one of man's crowning scientific achievements, it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.
-
-
Great Book, Great Narration, But...
- By Henny Button on 09-18-10
By: Sam Kean
What listeners say about The Demon Under The Microscope
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- DrAlexW
- 07-30-08
Fascinating Science History
Written expertly and read with great energy, this audiobook is a fascinating retelling of the stories of genius, of caring, and of cunning in what was truly the genesis of modern medical practice.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ryan
- 02-21-13
Proof one person can change the world
Any additional comments?
I was hesitant to use my credit on this book. I enjoy history, and in particular, war history, and was surprised to find ample amounts of both in this book. Most of us born in the latter half of the 20th century don't often consider the fact that, not many years ago, a common bacterial infection could be life threatening. Consider the soldier in WWI who received a small shrapnel wound that ends in infection, and ultimately death. NO DRUG existed that could address bacterial infection. The common medical prescription was fluids and rest. A simple sinus infection could have been lethal. In other words, it is hard to imagine the impact a few determined scientists had on humanity when they discovered a way to fight bacterial infection.
Thomas Hager does justice to these determined men and women in this wonderful book. I highly recommend this book to anyone. The narration is great, and the story is phenomenal.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Ronald E. Bowers MD
- 03-29-08
Superb story
As a physician I found this treatment of the development of the first antibiotic extremely interesting and informative. The author
does a great job of describing the pre-antibiotic era-which includes most of history-and against this background tells the story of the discovery of sulfa.
In particular, the carnage (wound infections) caused by the "strep" bacteria in WWI is addressed in detail--it was a dreadful slaughter--and even the tiniest wound could kill.
This is a must read for one who would understand the modern antibiotic era, and a warning about what will happen when our current drugs are outsmarted by the bacteria.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Qbook
- 09-07-07
A Solid Science History Book
A very well done history of the fight against bacteria, which led up to the magic bullet of sulfa. I especially liked the fact that Hager is a scientist turned writer rather than a journalist turned nothing. His grasp of science shows throughout the book, and this book has one of the best beginnings I've seen for a history of science book. The detail is amazing and always interesting, mixing large doses of big business, academics, science, and politics.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sara R.
- 01-27-13
Well done history of disease in the early 1900's
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Demon Under The Microscope?
The understanding of how French law views patents and how section on how the FDA got their fangs.
What about Stephen Hoye’s performance did you like?
He sounded engaged.
Any additional comments?
Well researched and interesting. Very 'readable'.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
- JohninMaine
- 08-24-08
Well Written & Fascinating
I know next to nothing about medicine, biology and chemistry. You'd think the topic of this book would be toruously boring to read about, but no! The writing is wonderful and I was fascinated all the way through. The reader was good too. It's a very engaging story with interesting characters and intrigue, well told.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- T. Herzog
- 04-05-17
Could've done without the epilogue
I found the majority of this book very enlightening and (I'm trusting) well researched but the epilogue made me question the author's motives and speculate some on what was presented. In the story. The narration was excellent throughout.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Patricia Day
- 01-11-18
Intriguing read
The book is about the discover of sulfa and it’s effect on the world, disease, and World War II. Definitely recommended for the scientific minded. Plus I love the narrator
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Azad Jalali-jafari
- 02-01-16
Very interesting and gripping.
It was an informative and detailed book, yet managed to excite me and make me cheer for the scientists and other characters that inhabit it's pages. Well read and performed by Mr. Hoye.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Betty A. Wright
- 04-26-12
A miracle that I am grateful for.
I will never take antibiotics for granted again. After listening to this book, I realize just how fortunate I am to live at this time when so many conditions are easily cured with antibiotics. People died from sore throats? Or a splinter in their foot? As I read I thought about the scene in Pride and Prejudice when Jane gets sick. Mr. Bennett makes a joke about her dying, but after this book I realize that people did die from things we consider rather common, like colds. Made me very grateful, not only for scientists who work hard to discover these drugs, but for the chances that made these discoveries possible.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!