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The riveting history of tuberculosis, the world's most lethal disease, the two men whose lives it tragically intertwined, and the birth of medical science. 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. Touring the ward of reportedly cured patients, he was horrified.



About the Author

Thomas Goetz

THOMAS GOETZ is a science journalist and healthcare innovator. The entrepreneur-in-residence at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, he is also co-founder of the health technology company, Iodine. The former executive editor of WIRED, his writing has been selected for the Best American Science Writing and Best American Technology Writing anthologies.Born in Minneapolis, Thomas comes from a family of healthcare providers, including his father (an internist), his mother (a registered nurse), and his two sisters (a public-health worker and a surgeon). Thomas currently lives in San Francisco with his wife and two boys. Formerly a reporter at the Village Voice and the Wall Street Journal, he holds a master of public health degree from the University of California Berkeley and a masters in literature from the University of Virginia.



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