The Light in the Skull

An Odyssey of Medical Discovery

Since the dawn of recorded history, scientists and doctors have struggled to understand and treat a variety of illnesses, including the Plague, anthrax, polio, smallpox, flesh-eating bacteria, Hanta virus, AIDS, and more recently, Mad Cow Disease. Going beyond The Hot Zone and The Microbe Hunters, The Light in the Skull delves into the minds and actions of such great scientists as Gallo, Pasteur, and Salk, as they try to link the three great themes of our time: evolution, disease, and the frail ever-changing relationship between humans and nature.

With a great storyteller’s skill, Dr. Glasser reveals how these geniuses of medicine battled prejudice, ego, and anger to make amazing discoveries that relieved suffering, healed the sick, and altered the lives of billions of people. Reader will discover the first instance of germ theory, participate in the development of vaccines, understand antibiotics and genetic defects, and ultimately lean how medicine has always struggled to keep death and destruction more than a heartbeat away.

Anyone interested in the origins and persistence of life, the delicate balance between all living things, and how a new generation of scientists, working down at the molecular level of research, will be able to treat and cure the cancers and retroviruses that make up our newest plagues, will find this work riveting.