Fascinating subject for anyone concerned about serious antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. Although it's been studied in Russia since the early 1990s, it was forgotten by the West after penicillin was discovered. Now the subject of bacteriophages, healing viruses, is being looked at again.

The Living Medicine: How a Lifesaving Cure Was Nearly Lost—and Why It Will Rescue Us When Antibiotics Fail by Lina Zeldovich is eye-opening. The main topic of the book is how bacteriophages, first discovered in 1917, are living medicines. In 1917, bacteriophages were discovered by a French-Canadian microbiologist, who noticed that certain viruses could infect and destroy bacteria. He observed that these viruses could be used to target specific bacterial infections, offering a promising alternative to traditional antibiotics. This groundbreaking discovery laid the foundation for phage therapy, a treatment method that could become crucial as antibiotic resistance rises. Unlike traditional antibiotics, which often target a broad spectrum of bacteria, bacteriophages are highly specific and can target only certain strains of bacteria. This specificity reduces the risk of harming beneficial bacteria in the body, which is a common side effect of antibiotics. Additionally, bacteriophages can evolve alongside bacteria, potentially maintaining their effectiveness even as bacteria develop resistance. As well as the challenges in phages, the book discusses those who chose antibiotics over bacteriophages in the past.

Fascinating. I'd not heard of bacteriophages before reading this clearly deeply researched but wholly accessible book but now, wow. Zeldovich details the history of the research and how the phages fell from favor only to rise again as more ailment have. become antibiotic resistant. Thanks to netgalley for the ArC. You need not be a scientist to enjoy and learn from this.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for access to this arc.


I was all in for the first few chapters of this book. Then it seemed to slow down and delve into the personal lives behind the scientists. It slowly dawned on me that I obviously hadn't read the blurb closely enough and yes, after checking it and reading the first sentence (headdesk ,headdesk, headdesk) I realized my error. I take the blame for not reading closely enough to see that this book would not work for me. However I also feel, that for the average reader with no background in microbiology, this would be a tough slog. Sorry to DNF this but it's not for me.

Lina Zeldovich gives us a history lesson as well as a lesson about what phages are and why they could be important to the medical field. A large part of the book is devoted to the history of the study of phages, the scientists who did this work and why they were largely ignored at the time they were making breakthroughs in this field. You could tell that Zeldovich has spent a great deal of time researching this topic and is a bacteriophage expert (or at least an expert in the history of the development of the study of phages). Beyond that, the author, spends some time explaining what bacteriophages are, how the overuse of antibiotics has made them rather ineffective and how the use to lytic phages could help to save countless people in the future when antibiotics no longer work.

This was a brief synopsis, but I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in medical history, phages, and medicine in general. Overall, it was an interesting book to read.

Wow! This book is not at all what I expected. The first 40% is a history of the discovery of bacteriophages in the early 20th century involving mostly a Georgian doctor and a french doctor. The next part is about postwar antibiotic uses and then back to the Russian phages postwar history. ( We can only hope that the people who advised adding antibiotics to almost everything were just ignorant of the consequences and not only looking to make money without care of the negative outcomes.)
Then comes the exciting part - current day research. It almost reads like a thriller with a race against time. I so can’t wait to see bacteriophages being used as part of everyday health care!
I did find it slow in the beginning but stick with it! It’s totally worth it!

A fascinating look into the use of bacteriophages as weapons in the fight against antibiotic resistant infections. The information was presented in a clear, concise way and was very well researched. I thoroughly enjoyed every page.

This is a really interesting book that combines science and history. I'm now fascinated with phages and look forward to following news on this.

The Living Medicine tells the story of how the Western World has been ignoring a innovative and real way to fight infections. The book tells the story of the discovery and use of phages, including where they have been used successfully and why the Western World has been leery of them, preferring the use of antibiotics.

As a biography that reminded me of an adventure in a way, The Living Medicine is a fascinating book that talks of possibilities that if researched and put into use, could literally change how infectious diseases are treated.

A comprehensive examination of the evolutionary trajectory of infectious disease is essential. While antibiotics have been a common approach, the use of bacteriophages has been explored by Russian researchers on their region of the globe. The narrative of scientific progress is not without its challenges and complexities, yet it remains a remarkable feat.

A fascinating volume of popular science.

I am interested in microbiology, so I had heard about bacteriophages - viruses that hunt and kill bacteria - but I had no idea how much therapeutic potential they have, nor that they have been used in medicine for a century.

The author tells this astonishing story, colorfully recounting first the discovery of phages, then how this painfully acquired knowledge was almost lost to science, but was miraculously preserved in Georgia - not the southern state, but a post-Soviet country in the Caucasus, where you can buy these benevolent viruses in a pharmacy. It also describes how the West is finally beginning to accept these unorthodox therapies as a last resort in cases of - increasingly common - antibiotic resistance.

It is not only very well written, it is also of the utmost importance for all of us - this "living medicine" can save so many lives. And it is a rare example of a scientific story that gives some hope and reason for optimism - we could achieve so much if we just accepted that instead of trying to outsmart nature, we should work with it. After all, as the author observes, „phages have been feeding on bacteria for eons, so they are better equipped than our pharmaceutical industry to keep up with bacterial evolution”.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in science or medicine.

Thanks to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

This book gave a thorough overview of the history of phages and their applications. The comparisons of philosophy in choosing to use a fixed, stable drug vs the dynamism of phages were interesting and informative. I also thought the depictions of why phage therapy elicited the skepticism it did were well worth reading. Detailed overviews of the lives of the main figures in phage research are given, which gives another layer to the overarching story of how phages can to used to save lives. It is also thought-provoking to consider the importance of environment, both for locating phages and conducting research. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about the history and applications of bacteriophages, as well as those interested in the research and social and political environment in the Soviet Union.

The Living Medicine by Lina Zeldovich
How a Lifesaving Cure Was Nearly Lost—and Why It Will Rescue Us When Antibiotics Fail

If I'd ever heard of a bacteriophages in my life, I've forgotten about it. I just thought of all viruses as being bad but that it not the case. Bacteriophages are viruses that devour bacteria and we will never run out of them because they are everywhere. Discovered in 1917, great progress was being made in this area of medicine although during Stalin's murderous purges research scientists and physicians who were so enthusiastic to grow and study bacteriophages were stopped in their tracks. So much of their work and writings were lost forever but still, as this book moves forward through the history of bacteriophages, we eventually get back to some of the known work of those beginning pioneers of bacteriophage research.

As viruses become resistant to any kind of antibiotic available, bacteriophages, with their countless variations and abilities to change, are what could save mankind and animals. It was amazing to read of the scientists and doctors heading to the nearest water containing sewerage and scooping up more material that can allow them to grow the bacteriophages in their labs. I can't begin to explain what I've read in this book although I do know some of it raised my paranoid level a bit. This is medicine that is alive, living, growing, changing, devouring, but it has to be grown correctly, things have to be done just right for a body to reap the benefits. Still, lives have been saved when they were on the brink of death and there was no other option. Hopefully there will be more bacteriophage research and more facilities dedicated to creating the bacteriophages needed to fight ever growing and strengthening viruses.

Thank you to the St. Martin's Press Influencer Program and NetGalley for this ARC.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication date: Oct. 22, 2024
Lina Zeldovich is a science writer who grew up in Russia and relocated to New York City later in life. Her newest story, “The Living Medicine: How A Lifesaving Cure Was Nearly Lost- And Why it Will Rescue Us When Antibiotics Fail” is a unique investigation of “bacteriophages”, or “phages”, which are natural organisms that can be found in just about anything, including the human body, and work to treat infection.
Zeldovich introduces phages to us in the first few chapters, talking about how they were a popular health treatment in her native Russia. She does use some scientific language, but it is nothing overpowering. “Living Medicine” provides a unique and fascinating glimpse at how the world around us can be used to treat some of the most dangerous infections known to us.
After we learn about phages (where they come from, what they are and how they work), Zeldovich talks about the men (and women) who played an important role in their discovery and their implementation to treat infection. Then, of course, the latter portion of the story talks about the challenges of bringing such a treatment to North America, the United States in particular. I learned a lot about how the FDA approves (and refuses) new medications and the important, but lengthy, processes this entails.
“Living Medicine” focuses, too, on the antibiotics race, and how infections are mutating in such a way that antibiotics need to continue to become bigger and stronger to fight them. This is nothing new to anyone in today’s society, but it opens a bigger conversation about pharmaceutical companies and the approval processes. “Living Medicine” is an honest depiction of a divisive concept, and it was as educational as it was engaging.
Generally, books on science can overwhelm me. I wish I was better at science, but it’s never been my forte, although I understand its importance and influence in every field. That being said, I found “Living Medicine” to be a scientific story, yes, but also a story on the modern condition and nature’s fight to survive.
Phages have been used in Russia and other Eastern European countries for decades now, and Western physicians have been reluctant to use a treatment from such an unstable, untrustworthy part of the world. However, Zeldovich has no doubt introduced the world at large to a unique treatment that will, hopefully, serve as a more natural solution to some of our biggest bacterial foes.

This was a really great story that showed some major deficiencies in American medicine. It goes to show that we don’t always know the entire story. It was done in an informational and entertaining way.. it did get a little too draggy in parts, but that’s to be expected of any nonfiction story, such as this. All in all, phenomenal book!

I still don't really want to go out and slurp down some untreated river water after reading Lina Zeldovich's The Living Medicine, but a little part kind of does. This book is fascinating, and explores a way of treating bacterial infections in a way that's been dismissed for so many years in western medicine. With the increasing resistance to antibiotics, we likely will have no choice but to learn how to welcome the mighty phage into our bodies, a type of virus that Soviet bloc countries have been using successfully for years to prevent and cure infections. Admittedly, the opportunities for something to go wrong are there, because unlike antibiotics, it will be something very difficult for the FDA to police. Which means there will be plenty of people out there that will crop up with their batches of miracle phages - which may not be anything more than sewage water in the worst cases, and phages that haven't been properly filtered and purified to serve the right purpose in the less worse cases - but the promise of what it can do is mind-boggling. And the thought that it can be done not just for highly industrialized countries but for low and mid-income countries makes it seem somewhat miraculous. The book is a combination of both what phages can do and how they treat bacterial infections as well as a history of how phages were discovered and the often fraught path the researchers that worked with them had to be taken seriously, face communist politics and the dismissal of them as a treatment option in modern Western medicine. Unsurprisingly, many of the medical doctors and researchers that made phages their life work were more interested in improving their efficacy and making them widely available than they were in making money off their discoveries. They were willing to fight to bring them to the people that needed them, willing to die for them, and willing to continue to push for their use when other people dismissed the idea of willingly taking a virus into their body. The very beginning and very end of the book feels a little bit like a selling pitch for the US company that currently manufactures phages, but beyond that I thought the book was fascinating and well-written. A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you for the eARC!

Whenever you're in schooling for any medical field (I myself am a NP), you hear about superbugs, or infections that have become resistant to antibiotics. You're taught not to prescribe antibiotics without knowing exactly what organism you're battling, and to weight the risks vs. benefits of treating. This is easier said than done as for two main reasons: 1) A lot of the tests you would use to determine the strain of the infection and the best medication to treat it - or sometimes the medication itself - is too expensive (thanks @American healthcare), and 2) many daily ailments such as "colds" are actually caused by viruses and often have no definitive bacteria that can be targeted to treat. But the reality is: you've got patients in your clinic who aren't able to go to work or function day to day and you need to give them something to make them feel better. So you give them the antibiotic anyway. And you figure after years and years of people getting broad spectrum antibiotics can create multidrug resistance and/or superbugs.

What they didn't teach me in school was about phages - so this book was insanely interesting to me. I won't pretend to be more than a nurse (so even for me, some of the science was a bit heavy/not explained fully well) but I for one actually enjoyed how much of the scientists' personal lives Zeldovich included in the book - even if sometimes it did feel a little jolted when placed side by side with the heavier science parts. Not only does it remind us that these scientists were humans who wanted to do well upon the world, but that they're not superhumans - just intelligent and dedicated humans who did something with (albeit incredible) their lives. It also highlights the red tape of government intervention, and opens up the question of how many other potentially life saving inventions/discoveries have been repressed due to it being deemed not profitable enough or too damaging to a country's overall status?

This book almost reads like historical fiction, and I loved every bit of it. But I'm curious to see if this book - and hopefully others - means we'll be seeing more of the phages' clear uses in everyday life.

This book was eye opening in the different infections that are out their and are reliance on antibiotics. This was an informative read.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for my copy of The Living Medicine by Lina Zeldovich in exchange for an honest review. It publishes October 22, 2024.
Wow, this book was so eye-opening! I remember learning about phages in anatomy and physiology and microbiology in college, but barely. I have never heard about this therapy before, and the background story is so important. I am very grateful that Zeldovich took the time and effort to write this book because it is truly so valuable!

An interesting paper on the development of bacteriophages to fight illness that are increasingly resistant to antibiotics.