Ten Drugs: How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine

Behind every landmark drug is a story. It could be an oddball researcher’s genius insight, a catalyzing moment in geopolitical history, a new breakthrough technology, or an unexpected but welcome side effect discovered during clinical trials. Piece together these stories, as Thomas Hager does in this remarkable, century-spanning history, and you can trace the evolution of our culture and the practice of medicine. 

​Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.

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• The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug
• The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
• Elemental: How the Periodic Table Can Now Explain (Nearly) Everything
• Borrowed Time: The Science of How and Why We Age (Bloomsbury Sigma)
• Skeleton Keys: The Secret Life of Bone
• Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom
• Miracle Cure: The Creation of Antibiotics and the Birth of Modern Medicine
• Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine