Do you mean to say you think you’ve discovered an infectious
disease of bacteria, and you haven’t told me about it? My dear
boy, I don’t believe you quite realize that you may have hit on
the supreme way to kill pathogenic bacteria. . . . And you
didn’t tell me! Well, sir, I wanted to make certain-- I admire
your caution, but you must understand, Martin, that the basic
aim of this Institution is the conquest of disease, not making
pretty scientific notes! You may have hit on one of the
discoveries of a generation. . . . May have, indeed. Martin
Arrowsmith, the hero of Sinclair Lewis’s 1925 Pulitzer Prize-
winning novel, Arrowsmith, goes on to use his discovery against
a devastating epidemic of plague in the West Indies. Fiction,
certainly, but it reflected the promise of the real thing.
Arrowsmith’s infectious disease of bacteria was genuine, the
handiwork of a newly discovered family of viruses called
bacteriophages--bacteria eaters--that prey on other microbes. In
the 1920s, with the age of antibiotics still