A fascinating account of vaccination's miraculous, inflammatory past and its uncertain future. In 1796, as smallpox ravaged Europe, Edward Jenner injected a child with a benign version of the disease, then exposed the child to the deadly virus itself. The boy proved resistant to smallpox, and Jenner's risky experiment produced the earliest vaccination. In this deftly written account, journalist Arthur Allen reveals a history of vaccination that is both illuminated with hope and shrouded by controversy—from Jenner's discovery to Pasteur's vaccines for rabies and cholera, to those that safeguarded the children of the twentieth century, and finally to the tumult currently surrounding vaccination. Faced with threats from anthrax to AIDS, we are a vulnerable population and can no longer depend on vaccines; numerous studies have linked childhood vaccination with various neurological disorders, and our pharmaceutical companies are more attracted to the profits of treatment than to the prevention of disease. With narrative grace and investigative journalism, Allen explores our shifting understanding of vaccination since its creation. 16 pages of illustrations.

Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver

Science & Math

Allen, Arthur

Biological Sciences

W.W.Norton

From a laboratory in wartime Poland comes a fascinating story of anti-Nazi resistance and scientific ingenuity. Few diseases are more gruesome than typhus. Transmitted by body lice, it afflicts the dispossessed―refugees, soldiers, and ghettoized peoples―causing hallucinations, terrible headaches, boiling fever, and often death. The disease plagued the German army on the Eastern Front and left the Reich desperate for a vaccine. For this they turned to the brilliant and eccentric Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl. In the 1920s, Weigl had created the first typhus vaccine using a method as bold as it was dangerous for its use of living human subjects. The astonishing success of Weigl’s techniques attracted the attention and admiration of the world―giving him cover during the Nazi’s violent occupation of Lviv. His lab soon flourished as a hotbed of resistance. Weigl hired otherwise doomed mathematicians, writers, doctors, and other thinkers, protecting them from atrocity. The team engaged in a sabotage campaign by sending illegal doses of the vaccine into the Polish ghettos while shipping gallons of the weakened serum to the Wehrmacht.
Among the scientists saved by Weigl, who was a Christian, was a gifted Jewish immunologist named Ludwik Fleck. Condemned to Buchenwald and pressured to re-create the typhus vaccine under the direction of a sadistic Nazi doctor, Erwin Ding-Schuler, Fleck had to make an awful choice between his scientific ideals or the truth of his conscience. In risking his life to carry out a dramatic subterfuge to vaccinate the camp’s most endangered prisoners, Fleck performed an act of great heroism.
Drawing on extensive research and interviews with survivors, Arthur Allen tells the harrowing story of two brave scientists―a Christian and a Jew― who put their expertise to the best possible use, at the highest personal danger. 35 illlustrations

The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl: How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis

History

Europe

W.W.Norton&Company

"A timely, fair-minded and crisply written account."―New York Times Book ReviewVaccine juxtaposes the stories of brilliant scientists with the industry's struggle to produce safe, effective, and profitable vaccines. It focuses on the role of military and medical authority in the introduction of vaccines and looks at why some parents have resisted this authority. Political and social intrigue have often accompanied vaccination―from the divisive introduction of smallpox inoculation in colonial Boston to the 9,000 lawsuits recently filed by parents convinced that vaccines caused their children's autism. With narrative grace and investigative journalism, Arthur Allen reveals a history illuminated by hope and shrouded by controversy, and he sheds new light on changing notions of health, risk, and the common good.

Comics & Graphic Novels

Graphic Novels

“Thought-provoking…[Allen] writes without sanctimony and never simplifies the people in his book or the moral issues his story inevitably raises." ―Wall Street Journal
Few diseases are more gruesome than typhus. Transmitted by body lice, it afflicts the dispossessed―refugees, soldiers, and ghettoized peoples―causing hallucinations, terrible headaches, boiling fever, and often death. The disease plagued the German army on the Eastern Front and left the Reich desperate for a vaccine. For this they turned to the brilliant and eccentric Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl.
In the 1920s, Weigl had created the first typhus vaccine using a method as bold as it was dangerous for its use of living human subjects. The astonishing success of Weigl’s techniques attracted the attention and admiration of the world―giving him cover during the Nazi’s violent occupation of Lviv. His lab soon flourished as a hotbed of resistance. Weigl hired otherwise doomed mathematicians, writers, doctors, and other thinkers, protecting them from atrocity. The team engaged in a sabotage campaign by sending illegal doses of the vaccine into the Polish ghettos while shipping gallons of the weakened serum to the Wehrmacht.
Among the scientists saved by Weigl, who was a Christian, was a gifted Jewish immunologist named Ludwik Fleck. Condemned to Buchenwald and pressured to re-create the typhus vaccine under the direction of a sadistic Nazi doctor, Erwin Ding-Schuler, Fleck had to make an awful choice between his scientific ideals or the truth of his conscience. In risking his life to carry out a dramatic subterfuge to vaccinate the camp’s most endangered prisoners, Fleck performed an act of great heroism.
Drawing on extensive research and interviews with survivors, Arthur Allen tells the harrowing story of two brave scientists―a Christian and a Jew― who put their expertise to the best possible use, at the highest personal danger. 35 illustrations

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

The tomato. As savory as any vegetable, as sweet as its fellow fruits, the seeded succulent inspires a cult-like devotion from food lovers on all continents. The people of Ohio love the tomato so much they made tomato juice the official state beverage. An annual food festival in Spain draws thousands of participants in a 100-ton tomato fight. The inimitable, versatile tomato has conquered the cuisines of Spain and Italy, and in America, it is our most popular garden vegetable. Journalist Arthur Allen understands the spell of the tomato and is your guide in telling its dramatic story. He begins by describing in mouthwatering detail the wonder of a truly delicious tomato, then introduces the man who prospected for wild tomato genes in South America and made them available to tomato breeders. He tells the baleful story of enslaved Mexican Indians in the Florida tomato fields, the conquest of the canning tomato by the Chinese Army, and the struggle of Italian tomato producers to maintain a way of life. Allen combines reportage, archival research, and innumerable anecdotes in a lively narrative that, through the lens of today’s global market, tells a story that will resonate from greenhouse to dinner table.

Ripe: The Search for the Perfect Tomato

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Cooking Education & Reference

Counterpoint

As savory as any vegetable, as sweet as its fellow fruits, it inspires a cultlike devotion on all continents. The inimitable, versatile tomato has conquered the cuisines of Spain and Italy, and in America it is our most popular garden delicacy. Arthur Allen understands the spell of the tomato and he’s our guide to its dramatic story. He begins by describing in mouthwatering detail the wonder of a truly delicious tomato, and then introduces the man who prospected for wild tomato genes in South America and made them available to tomato breeders. The story of enslaved Mexican Indians in the Florida tomato fields is followed by the tale of how the Chinese army mastered the art of canning tomatoes. Combining reportage, archival research, and innumerable anecdotes in a lively narrative seen through the lens of today’s global market, here is a story that will resonate from the greenhouse to the dinner table.

Footnote #4: A Literary Journal of History

Literature & Fiction

Bellinger, DeMisty D.

Fox, Mike

Pelky, Rebecca

McDonald, Kindra

Sippl, Roger

Goluboff, Benjamin

Bassen, L. Shapley

Ezra, Linnet

Literary

Alternating Current

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Books by Allen, Arthur