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The Remedy

Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis
Nov 14, 2016
Mild spoiler: Arthur Conan Doyle doesn't really appear until after page 100. Goetz has accomplished a lot with this intricately woven book, pulling together many threads into a coherent, complex, yet engaging narrative. It's a story of medical discovery. It's also the story of two brilliant and flawed men who changed the world. And the story of how people are shaped by the times in which they live. And a look at how society comes to accept new information. Robert Koch, a simple country doctor, working in the backroom of his medical practice, discovered the cause of anthrax and single-handedly proved germ theory, an idea which still had many skeptics back in the day. As his reputation and influence grew, he also helped invent a method for photographing microbes and ultimately uncovered the germ that causes TB, the most lethal disease in history. But there are a few morals to be gleaned from his life story, such as: Pride goes before a fall, and history is messy. Arthur Conan Doyle, a practicing physician and part-time writer set out to cover the story of Koch's purported invention of a remedy for tuberculosis. He was one of the few people to report on it with clarity and reason. Not long after, his fascination with new methods of scientific detection led to the creation of Sherlock Holmes, changing his life and the world's literature forever. At the same time, Conan Doyle's wife was dying of TB. Well-researched and documented.