Not so many decades ago, a cut or scrape, if it became infected, could be deadly. On the battlefields of World War I, dirty wounds bred gas gangrene, a condition as revolting as it was hard to treat. For women in childbirth, the touch of an attendant's unwashed hands often caused a mysterious fever that carried off thousands of women and left as many children motherless.
Bacterial infection dogged humanity for millennia, until a mild-mannered German chemist named Gerhard Domagk dosed a group of strep-infected lab mice with an experimental compound called Kl-695. The mice recovered and, on Christmas day 1932, a patent was filed for Streptozon, the world's first antibiotic. It was also the first so-called sulfa drug, one of a powerful class of sulfur-containing antibiotics that interfere with bacterial metabolism. Sulfa drugs are still used today.
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In The Demon Under the MicroscopeB&N, Thomas Hager introduces Domagk and a host of other characters to bring the story of the discovery alive. Seed caught up with the author to ask him about his work on Demon, his take on big discoveries, and his opinion about what makes a science story a riveting read.
Of all the science stories out there, why is the discovery of sulfa the one you chose to develop into a book?
I stumbled across this story entirely by accident, while I was researching something else. I think what first caught my eye was a researcher who won the Nobel Prize for finding the greatest medicine the world had ever seen, but instead of being honored by his government—this was in Nazi Germany—he was tossed in jail. That got my attention. The more I researched [Domagk's] life, the more I saw that his discovery is really a central story of our time. Science is at the core of our culture in so many ways, most of them pretty much unappreciated by most people. And I think this is a core story of twentieth century science, showing not only how science changes lives, but also how politics, money, personal agendas, and luck change science.
Could you give us a quick and dirty synopsis of the book?
Humans through[out] history search for miracles to cure disease. With little to show after 10,000 years of searching, most physicians give up on the idea that chemicals can cure infectious disease. Then, in 1932, a miracle drug is found. The medicine saves millions of lives, including Winston Churchill and FDR's son. The medicine changes drug laws, drug discovery methods, and medical practice. In the next two decades, deaths from childhood disease drop by 90 percent and average life spans increase 10 years. Discoverer wins Nobel Prize. Discoverer is thrown in jail. Discovery is forgotten.
Did you realize right off the bat that Domagk would be the 'main character?'
No, I started with the discovery and the main character came later. Gerhard Domagk, who is credited with the discovery (it was actually a team effort), is—on the surface—one of the least interesting characters imaginable: a quiet, uncomplaining family man who worked almost his entire professional life at the same job. But the more I learned about him, the more I learned that a quiet surface can hide a fascinating person.
What was the most difficult part of the writing process?
Research abroad. I spent a week in Germany digging into Domagk's papers at the Bayer Archives, and another week at the Pasteur Institute in France. I speak neither language. But the archivists did and between their help, the aid of translators, my understanding of the key players and concepts, and the universal language of science—molecular diagrams, numbers, and lab notations—I managed.