Book Review

Men, Microbes and Medical Microbiologists: A Concise Pictorial History of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases

N Engl J Med 2005; 352:101-102January 6, 2005

Article

Men, Microbes and Medical Microbiologists: A Concise Pictorial History of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
By Han T. Siem. 327 pp., illustrated. Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Erasmus Publishing, 2004. $127.50. ISBN: 90-5235-169-4

The philatelist will be pleased to see that this beautifully illustrated work on the history of medical microbiology and infectious diseases is illustrated with mint stamps, canceled stamps, covers, first day covers, stamp booklets, cancellations, postcards, perforated stamps, disinfected mail, and quarantine letters. Although its emphasis is on postage stamps and related philatelic items, the book will be of interest not only to philatelists but also to medical historians, physicians, and any reader who appreciates an attractive book.

Postage Stamps Featuring the Likenesses of Gregor Johann Mendel and Albert Schweitzer.

Men, Microbes and Medical Microbiologists begins with a fascinating account of Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek, a draper from the town of Delft in the Netherlands. He developed the art of making minuscule lenses mounted in a single-lens microscope. During a 50-year period, he wrote more than 250 letters to the Royal Society in London, describing the “animalcules” he found in a wide variety of material that included white debris from between his teeth. More than 100 years passed before Carl Zeiss and Ernst Abbe succeeded in making a practical compound microscope.

Many stamps and other philatelic material in the book illustrate the life of Robert Koch. Siem points out that Koch described the life cycle of the anthrax bacillus in little more than a month. Shibasaburo Kitasato, an assistant to Koch, quietly obtained clippings of Koch's hair and fingernails and, after Koch's death, built a shrine for the relics in front of his laboratory. After Kitasato's death, his remains were placed in the same shrine, next to those of his teacher.

Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin is well documented, but it was reassuring to see the stamp depicting Ernest Duchesne, who actually discovered penicillin more than 30 years before Fleming. The book also illustrates the history of streptomycin, chloramphenicol, and erythromycin. The Mayo brothers' stamp is included because the clinical studies on the development of streptomycin were performed at the Mayo Clinic.

After a concise history of medical microbiology, Siem describes epidemics of infectious diseases throughout the ages, including smallpox, plague, cholera, yellow fever, typhus, tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, syphilis, poliomyelitis, parasitic tropical diseases, and AIDS. It was fascinating to learn that the introduction of smallpox was much more important than the military strength of the Spanish Conquistadors in the conquest of the Aztecs and the Incas. The history of smallpox vaccination is nicely illustrated by many philatelic items.

We learn that Karl Landsteiner, in 1908, discovered the poliovirus in the spinal cord of a boy who died of the disease. We are also told that Frank Macfarlane Burnet, of subsequent immunologic fame, discovered at least two different polioviruses in 1931. The well-known contributions of John Enders, Thomas Weller, Jonas Salk, and Albert Sabin are all depicted on stamps. The story of AIDS, along with many stamps illustrating it, is nicely shown. However, supporters of famed researcher Robert Gallo will be disappointed to learn only of the contributions of Luc Montagnier; Gallo is not mentioned.

The book has some minor shortcomings. Use of a larger font would have made it more readable. I would also like to have seen more biographical information on a number of the people depicted on stamps. The curious reader would probably like to see more resource material, because the bibliography is rather meager. There are some minor errors. For example, John Lettsom was born in 1744, rather than in 1444, and Emily Bronte was born in 1818, rather than 1848. The altitude of Saranac Lake, New York, is stated to be 530 m (or, as incorrectly stated in the book, 180 ft).

The author is a physician and medical microbiologist who practiced for more than 30 years in the Netherlands. He has also served as a juror in several exhibitions of the International Philatelic Society. This splendid book will enhance the libraries of philatelists, microbiologists, physicians, scientists, and medical historians. I recommend it highly.

Robert A. Kyle, M.D.
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905
kyle.robert@mayo.edu