Old discoveries, new cheer

In the hands of d'Herelle and others, the phage became a potent tool against cholera

THE GOOD VIRUS: The Amazing Story and Forgotten Promise of the Phage  

Author: Tom Ireland

Publisher: W W Norton

Pages: 389

Price: $30

THE MASTER BUILDER: How the New Science of the Cell Is Rewriting the Story of Life 

Author: Alfonso Martinez Arias

Publisher: Basic Books

Pages: 341

Price: $32

In the 1910s, more than a decade before the discovery of penicillin, the microbiologist Felix d’Herelle was growing diarrhoea-inducing bacteria in his lab. A scientist of few credentials and uncertain birth — no one knows if he was French, Belgian or Canadian — d’Herelle hoped to start an epidemic of the runs among a plague of locusts