Summary

Chapter 10, “A Study in Tuberculin,” describes a medical arms race between Robert Koch and Louis Pasture. Koch would discover the cause of a disease, and Pasture would find a cure. Rather than work together, Koch, whose country had just defeated Pasture’s France in a major war, rushed to find a TB cure first. Koch developed a serum that he claimed inoculated against TB. However, Arthur Conan Doyle (who would go on to write Sherlock Holmes), discovered the serum actually just reacted against the presence of TB already in the body. It was not a cure. This serum is now used as test for TB; but, it is not a cure for the disease. Koch disgraced himself by continuing to cling to the idea that it could be a cure.

Chapter 11, “Trepidation and Hope,” describes efforts to combat TB once its contagious...