The Elusive Magic Bullet: the Search for the Perfect Drug
by: John Mann
en | Oxford University Press, USA
0198500939 9780198500933 9780585129372
The Elusive Magic Bullet: the Search for the Perfect Drug
By John Mann
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Pages: 209
Publication Date: 1999-04-15
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0198500939
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780198500933
Product Description:
In this captivating new book, John Mann reveals the history of drugs common today in the treatment of disease. The book presents the history of drug development, introducing some of the fascinating figures whose work influenced the search for these drugs. It also includes a discussion of the exciting advances being made within molecular biology today. The Elusive Magic Bullet offers a lively and fascinating glimpse of one of the most exciting fields of activity in modern medicine.
Amazon.com Review:
How does a drug know what to cure, and what to leave alone? In a book that complements his earlier Murder, Magic, and Medicine (1992), Mann tells the story of how drugs–from the earliest chemical preparations to today’s designer prodrugs and engineered viruses–have been developed to treat bacterial infections, viral infections, and cancer. Curing disease, Mann argues, would be relatively easy if it weren’t so necessary that the patient survive the treatment. Drugs that cure diseases but leave patients standing have come in leaps and bounds in recent years, but progress, while swift, can never be steady. Pathogens, for one thing, do not stand still; therefore, to take the obvious example, naive or lazy overuse of antibiotics accelerates the evolution of antibiotic-resistant strains. We are certainly no longer living in a society in which, in Bacon’s famous formulation, "you would call a physician, that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of but is unacquainted with your body … and so cure the disease and kill the patient." But neither have we quite mastered the art of making drugs that target and eradicate pathogens and malignancies with the niceness of a "magic bullet." Mann’s account achieves a nice balance of optimism and realism; it is more likely to inspire than to comfort. Today’s researchers are unlikely to come away contemplating early retirement, or, to give Mann’s enthusiasm its due, even wanting to. –Simon Ings, Amazon.co.uk
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