"This book, an international bestseller published in 1926, has influenced decades of researchers and doctors in the field of immunology and pathology. Paul de Kruif was himself a bacteriologist and pathologist, and he offers fascinating accounts of the first scientists to discover the microscopic world. These fundamental discoveries, including the first time a microbe was seen in a drop of rain water by the father of microbiology, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, and Pasteur's discovery that a vaccine could savehumans from rabies, are told in an engaging and entertaining way. The researchers and scientists are depicted both as flawed humans and as champions of the scientific process who advanced our knowledge of diseases and their cures--and whose legacy continues today in the work of immunologists and pathologists fighting viruses such as HIV-AIDS and SARS-Covid"--
