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Great men don’t shape history – but tiny microbes do

Jonathan Kennedy explores the (mainly) devastating effects of bacteria in the past – and now, as they proliferate and our resistance diminishes

8 April 2023

9:00 AM

8 April 2023

9:00 AM

Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History Jonathan Kennedy

Torva, pp.384, 25

On Tuesday afternoons, pathology teaching at medical school required me to peer down a microscope for two hours, screwing my inactive eye ever more tightly shut as if that would make the looking eye suddenly see clearly. Each eosin-stained slide with its pink and purple lines and splodges of diseased cells was as legible to me as a barcode.

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