The Living Medicine
How a Lifesaving Cure Was Nearly Lost—and Why It Will Rescue Us When Antibiotics Fail
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Longlist for the PEN/E. O Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
A remarkable story of the scientists behind a long-forgotten and life-saving cure: the healing viruses that can conquer antibiotic resistant bacterial infections
First discovered in 1917, bacteriophages—or “phages”—are living medicines: viruses that devour bacteria. Ubiquitous in the environment, they are found in water, soil, inside plants and animals, and in the human body.
When phages were first recognized as medicines, their promise seemed limitless. Grown by research scientists and physicians in France, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere to target specific bacteria, they cured cholera, dysentery, bubonic plague, and other deadly infectious diseases.
But after Stalin’s brutal purges and the rise of antibiotics, phage therapy declined and nearly was lost to history—until today. In The Living Medicine, acclaimed science journalist Lina Zeldovich reveals the remarkable history of phages, told through the lives of the French, Soviet, and American scientists who discovered, developed, and are reviving this unique cure for seemingly-intractable diseases. Ranging from Paris to Soviet Georgia to Egypt, India, Kenya, Siberia, and America, The Living Medicine shows how phages once saved tens of thousands of lives. Today, with our antibiotic shield collapsing, Zeldovich demonstrates how phages are making our food safe and, in cases of dire emergency, rescuing people from the brink of death. They may be humanity’s best defense against the pandemics to come.
Filled with adventure, human ambition, tragedy, technology, irrepressible scientists and the excitement of their innovation, The Living Medicine offers a vision of how our future may be saved by knowledge from the past.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this robust study, journalist Zeldovich (The Other Dark Matter) explores the medical promise of bacteriophages, "a special type of virus that preys on bacteria." She explains that relying on antibiotics to fight bacterial infections has led to the evolution of "superbugs" impervious to the drugs. Phages can succeed where antibiotics fail, according to Zeldovich, because they evolve alongside the bacteria they destroy and only target one type of bacteria, meaning that phages that kill salmonella, for instance, won't harm gut bacteria that help humans digest food. Highlighting remarkable success stories, Zeldovich tells how in 2023, Russian cinematographer Andrey Zvyaginstev, who was suffering from an infection in his lungs that prevented doctors from giving him a life-saving lung transplant, received a phage infusion that so thoroughly beat the infection, his lungs healed and he no longer needed the transplant. Zeldovich makes a strong case that medical professionals are underutilizing phages, and she provides fascinating historical background on why they've been overlooked, describing how phage therapies' popularity in the Soviet Union, where they could be purchased over the counter at pharmacies, led Western doctors to view them with suspicion. Though this covers much of the same ground as Tom Ireland's The Good Virus, it's nonetheless a strong overview of phage treatments' history and benefits.
