BOOK REVIEWS were reproduced in 1949 in Antibiotics In the balance by Florey et al.. Away through Edward Abraham Wainwright provides simplistic and slightly misleading accounts of the chem­ the jungle istry of penicillin and the semi-synthetic Colin Gough Miracle Cure. The Story of Antibiotics. penicillins and cephalosporins. Because By Milton Wainwright. Blackwell: 1990. all these compounds have a four-membered Pp.196. £16.95. jJ-lactam ring it might have been more Physics of High-T, Superconductors. By appropriate to have placed them in the J. C. Phillips. Academic: 1990. Pp.393. MrLTON Wainwright has written a readable same section of the book. $55,£36. pot-pourri. Much of it is concerned with The discovery of streptomycin was the assessment of credit for the discovery reported in 1944 by Schatz, Bugie and ALMOST four years after Bednorz and of the clinical value of penicillin and strep­ Waksman at Rutgers University; this Muller's Nobel prizewinning discovery of tomycin, but the author strays into other antibiotic was later found to be effective in superconductivity in the layered cuprate areas, including a description of some the treatment of tuberculosis. This book compounds, the unexpectedly high transi­ bizarre procedures that have previously describes how all was well between tion temperatures of these materials been claimed to cure bacterial infections Waksman and Schatz until Schatz dis­ remains unexplained. It is frequently and the fiasco of the antibiotic patulin and covered that Waksman was receiving claimed, with some justification, that the common cold. there are as many theories for the layered The author, who is in the Microbiology cuprate high-temperature (or HTC) Department at the University of Sheffield, superconductivity as there are groups states that he has "attempted to redress working on the problem. Keeping abreast recent attempts to downgrade the role of the literature remains a daunting task played by Sir Alexander Fleming in the for even the most experienced researcher. discovery of this most famous antibiotic". A book designed to summarize and Some may wonder whether this is neces­ explain the physics of HTC supercon­ sary, for Fleming's name has been ductors is therefore specially welcome, embedded in the public mind, while particularly when the writer is J. C. Florey's and Chain's have not. Yet Phillips, who has made many significant Fleming was not elected to the fellowship contributions to the theory of the elec­ of the Royal Society until 1943, 20 years tronic and phonon properties of solids after he had first been proposed by including conventional superconductors. Almroth Wright. Wainwright suggests In aiming "to cut a well-marked path that this should carry little weight with [through a literature] as forbidding as the "anyone who is familiar with the routes by darkest jungle", Phillips has selected a which one can succeed to this august rather special path, carefully chosen to body". The precise implication of his support his view that HTC superconduc­ phrase is not clear. But great trouble was tors are really no different in kind from taken to ensure that Fleming's candidature previously known superconductors. He is was not adversely affected by publicity for Fleming- "embedded in the public mind". sufficiently confident to state "there is no the findings in Oxford in 1940 and 1941. money from Merck and began a lawsuit room for doubt that it is lattice instabilities And it should be remembered that the for a share of royalties. The case ended and not magnetism that produce high- T, Royal Society is concerned with science, with a partial victory for Schatz. However, superconductivity just as much in cuprates not merely with medicine. when a Nobel prize was awarded to as in intermetallic compounds". Rela­ Fleming's chance discovery of penicillin Waksman alone, Schatz could not bring tively little attention is drawn to other has never been seriously disputed, nor has himself to remain inactive but, predict­ dangerous animals lurking in the jungle in his early belief that it might be clinically ably, he gained nothing from his activity. the guise of theoreticians with diametric­ useful for local application to infected Wainwright states that he has tried to ally opposed views. wounds. The vital discovery at Oxford, redress an historical imbalance, "this time The original Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer which receives little emphasis in the book, in favour oi Albert Schatz". Whether the (BCS) model successfully accounted for was that even exceedingly impure peni­ balance needed redress is at least open to superconductivity in terms of an indirect cillin could cure generalized and life­ question. Perhaps Waksman was un­ attractive electron interaction leading to threatening infections when introduced generous to Schatz and too secretive. But superconducting pairing via lattice vibra­ into the blood stream. It was this that gave it seems that Schatz failed to appreciate tions. This mechanism appears to place an penicillin its outstanding medical import­ that he was a research assistant to a man upper limit for superconductivity of ance. All that is arguable is whether who had opened a wide field of investiga­ around 40 K (-233 oq - well below the Fleming could have demonstrated this tion that had already led to the discovery current record for HTC superconductors property in mice if he had thought of of streptothricin. What is beyond doubt, of 125 K ( -148 °C). However, Phillips trying to do so. however, is that misjudgements by emphasizes that the layered cuprate HTC This book contains several interesting Waksman and Schatz brought them both a superconductors are much more complex anecdotes which may not be widely great deal of misery. structures than the theory was originally known. Appropriately, it describes in This book is well produced. But some developed to describe. Matthias, who some detail the striking success in Shef­ readers would find a more detailed index spent a lifetime in the quest for higher field of Dr C. G. Paine, whose penicillin­ more useful and others might appreciate temperature superconductors, would containing culture filtrates from Fleming's the addition of a few primary sources to have claimed that the cuprate super­ Penicillium were used for local treatment the author's suggestions for further read­ conductors were "tricking nature" into of eye infections in about 1930. Paine ing-to redress its balance. D circumventing the apparent boundaries of never published these results, but later he Sir Edward Abraham is at the Sir William Dunn conventional BCS theory. sent notes on the cases to Florey. These School of Pathology, South Parks Road, Oxford To support this thesis, Phillips first pre­ notes (not mentioned by Wainwright) OX13RE, UK. sents an extensive background to electron- 118 NATURE· VOL 346 · 12 JULY 1990 © 1990 Nature Publishing Group.