Toxin: the cunning of bacterial poisons
Alastair Lax
Oxford: OUP 2005 | Pp192 | £19.99 | ISBN0 198 60558 7
Reviewed by Simon Cotton

In the West, we have been living through a half-century of unparalleled security in our health. Typhoid, cholera, dysentery and other water-borne diseases no longer plague UK cities, as they did 150 years ago. The Black Death is a historical curiosity. Yet to many people living in the Third World, good health is not something to take for granted. Apart from malaria, two million die each year of tuberculosis. Drug-resistant staphylococcal infections testify to the complacency that resulted in courses of antibiotic treatment not being completed.  

This readable book charts the history of toxinology, paying particular attention to the great plagues of history, and to the famous heroes like Pasteur and Koch, as well as the lesser known Dr John Snow. The author explains clearly how bacterial toxins attack and interfere with our cells. The text deals with bacteria's potential for both evil and good, the latter through understanding how cells work which may offer possible anticancer applications for some bacteria.  

Why should chemists be interested in a book on bacterial toxins? The potential of biological agents as weapons of mass destruction continues to attract the interest of organisations, unsuccessfully thus far though the author reveals details of trials of biological weapons (in some cases on POWs) by the Japanese in World War II. 

I recommend you have this book on your shelf. This, along with Arno Karlen's Plague's progress; Pete Moore's Super bugs; and The killers within, by Shinayerson and Plotkin, will offer comprehensive coverage of nasty bugs and biological threats.