Microbe Hunters
Edition: March, 1940 edition, 24th printing
Publisher: Harcourt Brace and Company, Inc.
Published: Dec  1950, 24th printing
Place of publication: U.S.A. by Pocket books
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 349
Copyright date: 1926
First sentence: Two hundred and fifty years ago an obscure man named Leeuwenhoek looked for the first time into a mysterious new world peopled with a thousand different kinds of tiny beings, some ferocious and deadly others friendly and useful, many of them more important to mankind than any continent or archipelago.
Description: Paul de Kruif is most noted for his 1926 book, Microbe Hunters. This book was not only a bestseller for a lengthy period after publication, it has remained high on lists of recommended reading for science and has been an inspiration for many aspiring physicians and scientists.

Microbe Hunters consists of chapters on the following figures of medicine's "Heroic Age":

    * Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632 -1723), Invention of a simple microscope and the discovery of microorganisms.
    * Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729 - 1799), Biogenesis.
    * Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895), Bacteria, Biogenesis.
    * Robert Koch (1843 - 1910), Identification of pathogens.
    * Emile Roux (1853 - 1933) and Emil von Behring (1854 -1917), Diphtheria.
    * Elie Metchnikoff (1845 - 1916), Phagocytes.
    * Theobald Smith (1859 - 1934), Animal vectors and Ticks.
    * David Bruce (1855 - 1931), Tsetse fly and Sleeping sickness.
    * Ronald Ross (1857 - 1932) and Battista Grassi (1854 - 1925), Malaria.
    * Walter Reed (1851 - 1902), Yellow fever.
    * Paul Ehrlich (1854 - 1915), The Magic Bullet, Syphilis.

This collection of stories was first published in 1926 and has been in print ever since. It has been translated into at least 18 European and Asian languages and has sold millions of copies.
Table of contents: value: Leeuwenhoek  (First of the Microbe Hunters).......Spallanzani  (Microbes Must Have Parents!).......Pasteur  (Microbes Are a Menace!)........Koch  (The death Fighter)......Pasteur  (And the Mad Dog).......Roux and Behring  (Massacre the Guinea-Pig).......Metchnikoff  (The Nice Phagocytes)......Theobald Smith  (Ticks and Texas Fever)......Bruce   (Trail of the Tsetse).....Ross vs. Grassi   (Malaria).......Walter Reed   (In the Interest of Science--and for Humanity!).....Paul Ehrlich  (The Magic Bullet)