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The Remedy

Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis
Jul 26, 2014paulsarkisian rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
"The Remedy" is an outstanding book of science history. It is very readable and Goetz makes the characters and the time period come alive. he main story is very dramatic, where an unknown amateur scientist, Robert Koch, working alone after hours manages to definitively overturn the misguided established doctrine and prove that microbes cause disease. Goetz also paints a vivid picture of the impact of infectious diseases during the nineteenth century. Three is an intriguing cast of characters including Louis Pasteur as well as many of the leading men of science in Koch's homeland of Germany during the nineteenth century as well as the turn of the twentieth century. I found the tie in to Arthur Conan Doyle a little far-fetched, but the treatment of Conan Doyle's life and work was interesting and informative. The book was a great human as well as scientific story. If the goal of the Summer Reading Program is to read about science,you couldn't do better.