From the acclaimed author of Billion Dollar Molecule and The Antidote , a revisionist, passionate history of the pharmaceutical industry, detailing how the nascent industry ushered in an age of cures. The Age of Cures is the in-depth history of the birth of the pharmaceutical industry in the United States. Barry Werth is the author of Billion Dollar Molecule and The Antidote , two highly acclaimed books on the pharmaceutical industry. In The Age of Cures , he takes us back to a time before modern medicine. In the early part of the twentieth century, patients routinely died from the flu, if they didn't contract a more potent disease like rubella, mumps, or polio. Yet with advances in technology, the young talent at universities across the country, and the significant investment from a federal government eager to prepare for a second world war, medicine exploded in the 1930s to the 1960s to finally meet the needs of a sick populace. Finally, "miracle drugs" were available for the first time: penicillin and wide-spectrum antibiotics, cortisone, and a polio vaccine. Werth convincingly shows us how this crucial investment in science made America modern, and a scientific powerhouse for decades to come.