The Elusive Magic Bullet Book

How does a drug know what to cure, and what to leave alone? In a book which 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 on leaps and bounds in recent years, but progress, while swift, can never be steady. Pathogens, for one thing, do not stand still so, to take the obvious example, naive or lazy over-use 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 which 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 IngsRead More