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Previous Volume 356:2658-2659 June 21, 2007 Number 25 Next

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By Morton A. Meyers. 390 pp., illustrated. New York, Arcade Publishing, 2007. $29.95. ISBN 978-1-55970-819-7.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "serendipity" was coined by Horace Walpole in a letter to his friend Sir Horace Mann in January 1754. He explained that he had based it on a fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip (a former name for Sri Lanka), whose protaganists "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity," of things they were not looking for. In this well-researched and well-documented book, Morton Meyers details many examples of serendipity in medical advances. He divides the subject into four parts: antibiotics, anticancer drugs, cardiovascular medicine, and psychotherapeutic drugs. The various essays include . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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