The Discovery of the Germ: Twenty Years That Transformed the Way We Think About Disease (Revolutions in Science)

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Summary: The Discovery of the Germ: Twenty Years That Transformed the
Review: Most people learned whatever they know about the discovery of the connection between germs and disease either from Paul DeKruif's Microbe Hunters (1926) or from a chapter of their high school biology text. Waller (research fellow, University College London's Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine) presents a new telling of an old tale. The familiar characters are here--Pasteur, Lister, Koch, Semmelweis--and others who will be new to many readers--Davaine, Haffkine, and Wright. The development of the germ theory was hardly linear; fields as diverse as agriculture, sericulture, or surgery contributed necessary pieces. Waller handles these diverse threads and weaves a coherent narrative out of them. Besides describing how the idea of "germ" grew into today's microbiology, Waller also includes perspectives on science from recent social histories of science and medicine that place the discovery of germs in its social and intellectual context. The book's ample-for-its-size bibliography is a useful tool.