From Aspirin to Viagra: Stories of the Drugs That Changed the World

Acknowledgements

Dedication

About the Author

Preface

1. Aspirin

Story 1.1: The curious reverend and the bark of the willow

Story 1.2: The three fathers and the two miracle drugs

Story 1.3: The industrialist and his business

Story 1.4: The great German patriot and the Great Phenol Plot

Story 1.5: The man from New Zealand and marketing magic

Story 1.6: The country doctor and medicinal gum

Concluding remarks

2. Quinine

Story 2.1: The Countess of Chinchón and the Jesuit Bark

Story 2.2: The successful charlatan and the miracle medicine

Story 2.3: The two friends and the yellow cinchona

Story 2.4: The unlucky adventurer and the alpacas

Story 2.5: The two opposing scientists and the mosquitoes with spotted wings

Concluding remarks

3. Vitamin C

Story 3.1: The famous admiral and scurvy

Story 3.2: The ship's doctor and Murphy's Law

Story 3.3: The snob and the 7,000 cannons

Story 3.4: The Norwegian hygienist and guinea pigs

Story 3.5: The Hungarian politician and Hungarian paprika

Story 3.6: The hardworking chemist and the role of wine flies

Concluding remarks

4. Insulin

Story 4.1: The bold experimenter and sweet urine

Story 4.2: The military doctor in Barbados and various diets

Story 4.3: Two diabetologists, starvation, and Elizabeth the Iconic

Story 4.4: The vivid scientist from Mauritius and the elixir of youth

Story 4.5: The aspiring amateur and the elixir of life

Story 4.6: The strong-minded scientist and her four hands

Concluding remarks

5. Penicillin

Story 5.1: The doctor with stained hands and the magic bullet

Story 5.2: The rejected Nobel Prize and saving young Hildegard

Story 5.3: The Scottish bacteriologist and his return from vacat

Author: Vladimir Marko
Publisher: Springer
Published: 07/07/2020
Pages: 276
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.03lbs
Size: 9.61h x 6.69w x 0.61d
ISBN13: 9783030442859
ISBN10: 3030442853
BISAC Categories:
- Medical | History
- Medical | Pharmacy

About the Author

Vladimir Marko was born in 1952 in Kosice, Eastern Slovakia. He studied organic chemistry at Slovak Technical University and biochemistry at Comenius University, both in Bratislava. He finished his university studies in 1975 and PhD. studies in 1980.

From 1980 to 1991, Marko worked as a researcher in the Institute of Experimental Pharmacology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. As a member of the Department of Pharmacokinetics, he was responsible for the determination of drugs in biological fluids. In that time, he published several scientific articles and was also an editor of a book dealing with drug determinations (Determination of Beta-Blockers in Biological Material, Elsevier Science Publishers, 1989).

In 1994, Marko began working for the Danish-based pharmacological company Lundbeck, first as a representative and later as the managing director for Slovakia. After nearly 20 years there, he retired in 2013.