So Very Small: How Humans Discovered the Microcosmos, Defeated Germs--And May Still Lose the War Against Infectious Disease

by Thomas Levenson

The centuries-long quest to discover the critical role of germs in disease reveals as much about human reasoning--and the pitfalls of ego--as it does about microbes.

Scientists and enthusiastic amateurs first confirmed the existence of living things invisible to the human eye in the late sixteenth century. So why did it take two centuries to connect microbes to disease? As late as the Civil War in the 1860s, most soldiers who perished...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0593242734
• ISBN13: 9780593242735
• Release Date: April 2025
• Publisher: Random House
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.3"