A VERY short book in the Columbia University Revolutions in Science series. Does an unusually nice job of realistically discussing the development of the germ theory with frequent comments about Koch and Pasteur's personalities and what they stole from whom. Despite its brevity, little is excluded. There is no mention of Obermeier's discovery of Borrelia recurrentis or Petri and I don't think the Gram stain is mentioned specifically. I knew that Florence Nightengale was not a proponent of the germ theory, but I didn't know that she was so vocal about it. It isn't discussed here, but I think Virchow was also on the non-germ side. One of my favorite quotes (although not in this book) is from Friedrich Von Recklinghausen who said that attributing the etiology of tuberculosis to Koch's bacillus would be the same as attributing the origin of horse manure in the street to the sparrow that was sitting on it. ( )

If you are looking for an extensive investigation into the development of the germ theory of disease, this is not the book for you – it is extremely brief (only five paragraphs dedicated to Semmelweis, for example) and is, as a result, fairly superficial. But I do not mean to criticise; The Discovery of the Germ is engagingly written and makes for an ideal revision text (no scholastic connotations are intended, although it could also serve that purpose well); conversely, for those who know nothing of the subject I would certainly recommend this book as a primer before progressing to a more detailed work.

http://nhw.livejournal.com/895736.html

About the period between 1880 and 1900 in which it became generally accepted that germs were responsible for disease. Competently done but not very exciting. ( )