From Aspirin to Viagra, insulin to penicillin, and vaccines to vitamin supplements, drugs have become part of our everyday lives. This staggering global industry wasn't born overnight; advancements in pharmaceutical science have been happening for a long while, over the course of decades and even centuries.
This book tells the history of ten prominent substances and how they came to be common household names. It shows how the creation of such influential drugs often began with the right person at the exactly right-or wrong!- time. The chapters tell the stories of geniuses and charlatans; scholars and amateurs; advances won through hard work or pure luck; and ultimately, the handful of resounding successes that revolutionized a global industry.
Beyond the pioneers of the most famous drugs in our culture, the book analyzes how our perspective on medical treatment has shifted over the decades. Modern standards for testing and administering substances have created a new set of advantages, setbacks, and stigmas, all of which are discussed herein.
Acknowledgements
Dedication
About the Author
Preface
1. Aspirin
Story 1.1: The curious reverend and the bark of the willow
Story 1.2: The three fathers and the two miracle drugs
Story 1.3: The industrialist and his business
Story 1.4: The great German patriot and the Great Phenol Plot
Story 1.5: The man from New Zealand and marketing magic
Story 1.6: The country doctor and medicinal gum
Concluding remarks
2. Quinine
Story 2.1: The Countess of Chinchón and the Jesuit Bark
Story 2.2: The successful charlatan and the miracle medicine
Story 2.3: The two friends and the yellow cinchona
Story 2.4: The unlucky adventurer and the alpacas
Story 2.5: The two opposing scientists and the mosquitoes with spotted wings
Concluding remarks
3. Vitamin C
Story 3.1: The famous admiral and scurvy
Story 3.2: The ship's doctor and Murphy's Law
Story 3.3: The snob and the 7,000 cannons
Story 3.4: The Norwegian hygienist and guinea pigs
Story 3.5: The Hungarian politician and Hungarian paprika
Story 3.6: The hardworking chemist and the role of wine flies
Concluding remarks
4. Insulin
Story 4.1: The bold experimenter and sweet urine
Story 4.2: The military doctor in Barbados and various diets
Story 4.3: Two diabetologists, starvation, and Elizabeth the Iconic
Story 4.4: The vivid scientist from Mauritius and the elixir of youth
Story 4.5: The aspiring amateur and the elixir of life
Story 4.6: The strong-minded scientist and her four hands
Concluding remarks
5. Penicillin
Story 5.1: The doctor with stained hands and the magic bullet
Story 5.2: The rejected Nobel Prize and saving young Hildegard
Story 5.3:
Vladimir Marko was born in 1952 in Kosice, Eastern Slovakia. He studied organic chemistry at Slovak Technical University and biochemistry at Comenius University, both in Bratislava. He finished his university studies in 1975 and PhD. studies in 1980.
From 1980 to 1991, Marko worked as a researcher in the Institute of Experimental Pharmacology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. As a member of the Department of Pharmacokinetics, he was responsible for the determination of drugs in biological fluids. In that time, he published several scientific articles and was also an editor of a book dealing with drug determinations (Determination of Beta-Blockers in Biological Material, Elsevier Science Publishers, 1989).
In 1994, Marko began working for the Danish-based pharmacological company Lundbeck, first as a representative and later as the managing director for Slovakia. After nearly 20 years there, he retired in 2013.
