Life among the Daleks

This is for Paul de Kruif’s Life Among the Doctors.

When I was young, after I had an altercation with my father over whether we should go for a 75th reading of Little Red Riding Hood, my family started reading out loud after dinner (morning tea, lunch…). We did this every night until I left for boarding school in year 11. One of the memorably unexpected books was Paul de Kruif’s The Microbe Hunters. I ought to read it again – all I remember was that it was fascinating. So when I saw Life Among the Doctors at the Lifeline Booksale, I brought it home and – oh, it’s wonderful. It is largely a history of the often maverick trailblazers of public health in America in the first half of the 20th century, and it’s sad and astonishing and hilarious. If you can track down a copy, it will be worth it.

This is the fifteenth installment in the Dalek Game.