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Previous Volume 341:1320-1321 October 21, 1999 Number 17 Next

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By John Mann. 209 pp. New York, Oxford University Press, 1999. $29.95. ISBN 0-19-850093-9.

On April 19, 1910, Paul Ehrlich announced the development of a specific cure for syphilis, a drug soon known worldwide as Salvarsan (arsphenamine). Salvarsan was not the "magic bullet" that Ehrlich predicted, since its assault on a pathogen was coupled with a deleterious effect on healthy tissues. But the development of Salvarsan established a precedent in the history of therapeutics: it was a drug scientifically designed to treat a disease caused by a specific organism. So it is little wonder that John Mann begins The Elusive Magic Bullet with the story of Salvarsan. Two decades passed, a period known as . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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