So very small

Although microorganisms were first identified using rudimentary microscopes about 360 years ago, it took scientists nearly 200 years to make the intellectual leap and discover that some microbes can cause disease. In this timely and robust medical history, science writer Levenson chronicles the prolonged, often controversial genesis of germ theory. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, entrenched beliefs in miasma theory ("bad air"), punishment for sins, and "the will of God" as causes of infectious diseases (plague, cholera, tuberculosis, syphilis, influenza) were challenged by mounting scientific proof that bacteria (and yet unnamed viral agents) were the true instigators. Leading the way to enlightenment were Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, but Ignaz Semmelweis, Joseph Lister, Florence Nightingale, Paul Ehrlich, and Alexander Fleming also played major roles. Proper hygiene, antisepsis, and antibiotics and vaccines have saved countless lives. Levenson notes that wars are formidable incubators of disease. He also cautions that, despite the success in treating contagious illnesses, this is no time for complacency as such serious threats as antibiotic resistance, novel viruses, and the anti-vax movement are all on the rise.

Levenson (Money for Nothing), a professor of science writing at MIT, delivers a penetrating chronicle of humanity's fight against microorganisms. Among other milestones, he describes how Dutch merchant Antonie van Leeuwenhoek became the first person to identify bacteria after observing the organisms under a microscope he developed to inspect cloth in 1676, how Puritan minister Cotton Mather promoted smallpox inoculations after learning about the practice from an enslaved Berber man in early 18th-century Boston, and how Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 after returning from a summer holiday and finding penicillium mold growing in a culture plate in his lab. Cultural context enriches the scientific history, as when Levenson argues that the Christian belief that humans lord over the natural world prevented 17th-century thinkers from realizing that recently discovered "animalcules" (germs) could invade the human body and transmit illness. The account concludes with a troubling study of how vaccine misinformation and an overreliance on antibiotics has produced drug-resistant superbugs and led to the reemergence of measles, imperiling hard-won advances in public health (in 2019, 35,000 Americans died "of once treatable microbial diseases," Levenson notes). Buoyed by the author's lucid prose, this is a first-rate work of popular science. Photos. Agent: Eric Lupfer, UTA. (Apr.)

A detailed history of germ theory and how its emergence changed the world. Levenson, a professor of science writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, begins this very enjoyable and informative read with the arrival of the bubonic plague in 17th-century London, as reported in Samuel Pepys' diary and the medical records of the time. Doctors had no scientific foundation for understanding its cause and thus no way to deal with it. A clue came when Dutch cloth merchant Antonie van Leeuwenhoek used an advanced (for the day) microscope to observe tiny creatures, now known as microbes. But the idea that they might cause disease went against all received doctrine. Such miniscule creatures should be unable to harm human beings, who were on top of the natural order. It took a good 200 years more before Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch used careful scientific research to make the case that germs did, in fact, cause disease--and that they could be countered by vaccines. Another generation passed before scientists developed chemicals to kill germs that infected animals or people. By the late 1940s, penicillin was in regular use, and the war against infectious disease appeared to have been won. But that sense of triumph didn't take into account the microbes' ability to evolve their own defenses against the antibiotics--and suddenly the apparent victory is looking much more tenuous. Levenson gives a good account of the vigorous competition between the early advocates of germ theory as well as the often-heated battles with their opponents, paying due attention to the traditional ideas those opponents held. And his research turns up some surprises; for example, an early champion of smallpox vaccination was Cotton Mather, better known for his persecution of "witches" in colonial Massachusetts. An engaging survey of the discovery of microbes, their role in disease, and the efforts to combat them. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.