Ten Drugs

How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine

By: Thomas Hager

Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto

Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Behind every landmark drug is a story. It could be an oddball researcher’s genius insight, a catalyzing moment in geopolitical history, a new breakthrough technology, or an unexpected but welcome side effect discovered during clinical trials. Piece together these stories, as Thomas Hager does in this remarkable, century-spanning history, and you can trace the evolution of our culture and the practice of medicine.

Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.

©2019 Thomas Hager (P)2019 Audible, Inc.

Drugs, Drugs, Drugs.

An interesting, accessible account of the development of drugs that have rescued mankind from the ravages of killer diseases.

Author Thomas Hager remains objective about the management of these life-saving drugs, except for a few pointed comments about the greediness of Big Pharma and its endless appetite for ever more profit on the backs of stricken patients.

Professional narrators owe a debt of care to the author and the listener to ensure the correct pronunciation of names and words that are unfamiliar to them. Di Loreto's frequent fumbling of fairly mainstream terminology indicates a cavalier attitude toward his responsibility.

I was hooked

Fantastic book! I’m a pharmacist and I couldn’t get enough of the back stories on many of these world changing drugs!

Good History on Drugs

Although Americans make up 5% of the world's population, they are consuming 50% of the drugs. This is a good book on the history of well known drugs, like opium, morphine, heroin, opioids, antibiotics, birth control pills, and Viagra. Much of it is told as stories about how the creators found or made the drugs.

Great job.

Fantastic telling of some of the most important and dangerous drugs ever invented/discovered. Hopefully you next book will look into the evils of PBMs (pharmacy benefits managets) and their effect on drug cost and healthcare.

Fascinating!

Wonderful, thorough historical descriptions of how drugs are duscovered, developed, and used! A very informative listen!

An interesting listen

This was an interesting listen about one perspective about 10 influential drugs, most stem back to Opiates. I enjoyed the history and back stories about the scientists and the process.

Insightful!

This book provides an incredible insight into the history and development of drugs. Although it has a lot of scientific information it is written in a way that laymen like me would understand. My knowledge of medical and pharmaceutical industry has grown exponentially. I highly recommend this book.

Highly Recommended

A fascinating book that kept my interest all the way to the end. I loved the historical perspective of how our these 10 incredible drugs evolved.

Some parts better than others

I really liked the chapter on opium, the one about smallpox, and the Viagra chapter. I feel like a bit more cohesiveness and tightening of scope could help.

Great book

I recommend a lot! Great observations and information about a little bit of everything: history, science, drug industry