The Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition]
Author: | Language: English | ISBN: B00JFOCBEU | Format: PDF, EPUB
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The riveting history of tuberculosis, the world's most lethal disease, the two men whose lives it tragically intertwined, and the birth of medical science.
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. Touring the ward of reportedly cured patients, he was horrified. Koch's "remedy" was either sloppy science or outright fraud.
But to a world desperate for relief, Koch's remedy wasn't so easily dismissed. As Europe's consumptives descended upon Berlin, Koch urgently tried to prove his case. Conan Doyle, meanwhile, returned to England determined to abandon medicine in favor of writing. In particular, he turned to a character inspired by the very scientific methods that Koch had formulated: Sherlock Holmes.
Capturing the moment when mystery and magic began to yield to science, The Remedy chronicles the stunning story of how the germ theory of disease became a true fact, how two men of ambition were emboldened to reach for something more, and how scientific discoveries evolve into social truths.
Books with free ebook downloads available The Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition]
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 9 hours and 55 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Recorded Books
- Audible.com Release Date: April 3, 2014
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00JFOCBEU
In this book, Thomas Goetz has done a remarkable job of bringing the past to life. The book focuses on Arthur Conan Doyle, a physician and the creator of Sherlock Holmes, and Robert Koch, a brilliant but difficult man who was one of the great medical scientists of the 1880s and 1890s. (Koch won the Nobel Prize in 1905).
Koch had a number of undisputed achievements in pushing forward the science of medical microbiology, including basic work on the "germ theory" of disease; Koch's Postulates, which are four rules for determining the truth of a hypothesis about a causal microbe; key discoveries in microscopy andb acterial culture; and the use of animal models to investigate disease. Koch also went off the ranch a few times, such as believing that a crude extract of tuberculosis bacteria could cure the disease. (The material, today called tuberculin, might have offered some value for tests or inoculations but not for treatment). Arthur Conan Doyle, a not very successful English physician with a writing habit, traveled to Berlin and was among the first to write up Koch's tuberculin treatment as a failure. (Doyle's article, in a journal called Review of Reviews, can be found online for free).
Thomas Goetz tells everything well: The science story, the public fervor, the biographies of the men, and interesting asides such as the fact that Doyle was the founder of the "serial short story." This literary form had the continued thread found in serialized novels, with the convenience of a self-contained package that doesn't actually require reading the prior and subsequent stories. Students of innovation may find this a striking example of a novel idea that is hatched by mixing and matching two existing ideas.
For me, Robert Koch is the founder of strategy consulting.
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