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Miracle Cure
- The Creation of Antibiotics and the Birth of Modern Medicine
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
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Publisher's summary
For fans of Microbe Hunters: the epic history of how antibiotics were born, saving millions of lives and creating a vast new industry known as Big Pharma.
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.
William Rosen captures this revolution with all its false starts, lucky surprises, and eccentric characters. He explains why, given the complex nature of bacteria - and their ability to rapidly evolve into new forms - the only way to locate and test potential antibiotic strains is by large-scale, systematic trial-and-error experimentation. Organizing that research needs large, well-funded organizations and businesses, and so our entire scientific-industrial complex, built around the pharmaceutical company, was born.
Timely, engrossing, and eye opening, Miracle Cure is a must-listen science narrative - a drama of enormous range, combining science, technology, politics, and economics to illuminate the reasons behind one of the most dramatic changes in humanity's relationship with nature since the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago.
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Critic reviews
“Rosen’s highly informed retelling captures the drama of scientists’ quest, against long odds, to find and produce bacteria-killing drugs - and the egos, ambitions, brilliance and resolve that drove them.... It is a strength of “Miracle Cure” that Rosen places its many tales of discovery in their larger contexts...an important contribution to a still-germane yet fast-receding history. And it’s all the more impressive that Rosen, formerly a book editor and publisher, wrote it as he was battling his own intractable disease.” (The Wall Street Journal)
“In Miracle Cure, William Rosen tells the lavish story of antibiotics with the flair and skill of a seasoned novelist, portraying his characters as all too-human, the research often fallible but occasionally transcendent.... Rosen's chronological approach gives the narrative its fluency; his wit and vivid detail make Miracle Cure an absorbing read.... A triumph of science writing that deserves a broad popular audience.” (Minneapolis Star Tribune)
"In this assured chronicle of the 20th-century antibiotics revolution, William Rosen delivers reams of science at a thrilleresque pace. The experimentalists - Gerhard Domagk and Howard Florey among them - are vividly portrayed, as are the patients cured, the pharmaceutical corporations created and the moment in 1943 when bacteriologist Mary Hunt found the ancestor of all penicillin used today, on a mouldy melon. Antibiotic resistance and putative solutions are given their due, including Michael Fischbach's work on microbial-gene clusters in the human microbiome." (Nature)
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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.
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thought-provoking
- By Jean on 07-06-14
By: Thomas Goetz
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A Crack in Creation
- Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
- By: Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H. Sternberg
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR - a revolutionary new technology that she helped create - to make heritable changes in human embryos.
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In to the abyss we ascend, a scary future
- By Philomath on 06-17-17
By: Jennifer A. Doudna, and others
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The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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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".
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Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
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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
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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.
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Great book but very disturbing...
- By Tim on 01-15-09
By: John M. Barry
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Between Hope and Fear
- A History of Vaccines and Human Immunity
- By: Michael Kinch
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Between Hope and Fear tells the remarkable story of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases and their social and political implications. While detailing the history of vaccine invention, Michael Kinch reveals the ominous reality that our victories against vaccine-preventable diseases are not permanent - and could easily be undone. Between Hope and Fear relates the remarkable intersection of science, technology, and disease that has helped eradicate many of the deadliest plagues known to man.
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Enjoyed
- By Minsi Zhang on 05-03-20
By: Michael Kinch
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The Truth About Cancer
- By: Ty M. Bollinger
- Narrated by: Ty M. Bollinger
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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One out of three women alive today, and one out of two men, will face a cancer diagnosis, according to the World Health Organization. Ty Bollinger takes this personally: in the course of a decade, he says, "I lost my entire family to cancer. I don't believe I had to lose them." The Truth about Cancer has been written for one simple reason: to share the knowledge we need to protect ourselves, treat ourselves, and in some cases save our lives or the lives of those we love.
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save a life with this valuable information.
- By edwin matias on 12-30-16
By: Ty M. Bollinger
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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
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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.
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very detailed, but very statistical
- By ekhensel15 on 01-12-19
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Missing Microbes
- How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues
- By: Martin J. Blaser
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In Missing Microbes, Dr. Martin J. Blaser invites us into the wilds of the human microbiome, where for hundreds of thousands of years bacterial and human cells have existed in a peaceful symbiosis that is responsible for the health and equilibrium of our body. Now this invisible eden is being irrevocably damaged by some of our most revered medical advances-antibiotics-threatening the extinction of our irreplaceable microbes with terrible health consequences.
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Very enlightening and information well supported
- By James on 05-03-15
By: Martin J. Blaser
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Polio
- An American Story
- By: David M. Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-22-08
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Rigor Mortis
- How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions
- By: Richard Harris
- Narrated by: Joe Delafield
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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American taxpayers spend $30 billion annually funding biomedical research, but over half of these studies can't be replicated due to poor experimental design, improper methods, and sloppy statistics. Bad science doesn't just hold back medical progress, it can sign the equivalent of a death sentence for terminal patients. In Rigor Mortis, Richard Harris explores these urgent issues with vivid anecdotes, personal stories, and interviews with the top biomedical researchers. We need to fix our dysfunctional biomedical system - before it's too late.
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Eye opening introduction to biomedical R&D
- By Amazon Customer on 09-18-18
By: Richard Harris
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Editing Humanity
- The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing
- By: Kevin Davies
- Narrated by: Kevin Davies
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Engrossing and captivating, Editing Humanity takes listeners inside the fascinating world of a new gene editing technology called CRISPR, a high-powered genetic toolkit that enables scientists to not only engineer but to edit the DNA of any organism down to the individual building blocks of the genetic code. Davies introduces listeners to arguably the most profound scientific breakthrough of our time. He tracks the scientists on the front lines of its research to the patients whose powerful stories bring the narrative movingly to human scale.
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Excellent content, solid execution
- By Samuel Finlayson on 01-25-21
By: Kevin Davies
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A Short History of Medicine
- Modern Library Chronicles
- By: Frank Gonzalez-Crussi
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Praised for his erudite writing, renowned scientist Frank Gonzalez-Crussi penned this concise history of medicine, beginning with the most primitive health-care practices and ending with the technology of modern medicine that we enjoy today. As with all Modern Library Chronicles, A Short History of Medicine is a wonderful primer for anyone interested in the subject.
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Dull and Disorganized
- By Amazon Customer on 05-21-08
What listeners say about Miracle Cure
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sarah Dunlap Miller
- 05-19-18
Great book expertly narrated
Very intriguing history of antibiotics and to an extent, the development of medicine. The narrator does a fantastic job, smoothly reading over the medical terms with a tone that is easy to listen to. Overall, very enjoyable in both content and delivery.
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1 person found this helpful
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- RJD
- 02-28-19
Great History
The history and research for this book was exceptional. An intriguing story and insight into the development of antibiotics and pharmacological.
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- John R. Blackburn Jr.
- 05-25-17
A compelling tale of medical progress and advance
Where does Miracle Cure rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
One of my favorites. Concise and clear explanations of otherwise complicated topics like cellular biology and chemistry
Who was your favorite character and why?
The competition among German and French scientists is fascinating
Any additional comments?
Great narration
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kari
- 06-08-17
Mandatory reading for any pharmacist
This should be a part of any required reading for pharmacist, physican, and most other healthcare and anyone interested in medicine
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- xar adelberg
- 09-18-17
Excellence
Rosen's contribution to the literature documenting the history of modern medicine is of the highest quality. I appreciate that he didn't shy away from discussing specific chemistry as it fit into the story of how medicine got to where it is now. I reread several chapters as I went, not because I necessarily needed to, but because the pace was brisk and there was so much going on that I didn't want to miss out. The fascinating content was non-stop, from the birth of chemistry aka "the dye business" to the discovery of penicillin to the tremendous struggle in attempting to produce it. I would recommend Miracle Cure to anyone with interest in how stuff works, medicine, disease, WWI, history of consumer protection, history of big pharma, etc.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Aneil and Karen Mishra
- 07-25-17
A cure-all for science writing that bores.
Excellent discussion of the history and key individuals behind the development of the life-saving antibiotics we take for granted today, even though they are becoming less useful thanks to overuse and misuse (as part of animal feeds). The Audible narration is superb.
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- LaDin
- 03-29-19
Exceptional - Should be Required Reading
An excellent introduction to some of the most ground breaking medical innovations. Also touches on the origins of pharmaceutical companies, the history of medical treatment, pharmacology past and present, the rise of the FDA.
The material in this book is well written, always interesting, and even the chemistry that is discuses is presented so it is understandable.
AND
Rob Shapiro is the Gold Standard of readers....
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