Listen free for 30 days
-
The Woman with the Cure
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
The Woman with the Cure
Buy Now for $26.22
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's Summary
"Huge applause... women have always been in science—despite those who would pretend otherwise.”—Bonnie Garmus, New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry
She gave up everything—and changed the world.
A riveting novel based on the true story of the woman who stopped a pandemic, from the bestselling author of Mrs. Poe.
In 1940s and ’50s America, polio is as dreaded as the atomic bomb. No one’s life is untouched by this disease that kills or paralyzes its victims, particularly children. Outbreaks of the virus across the country regularly put American cities in lockdown. Some of the world’s best minds are engaged in the race to find a vaccine. The man who succeeds will be a god.
But Dorothy Horstmann is not focused on beating her colleagues to the vaccine. She just wants the world to have a cure. Applying the same determination that lifted her from a humble background as the daughter of immigrants, to becoming a doctor–often the only woman in the room–she hunts down the monster where it lurks: in the blood.
This discovery of hers, and an error by a competitor, catapults her closest colleague to a lead in the race. When his chance to win comes on a worldwide scale, she is asked to sink or validate his vaccine—and to decide what is forgivable, and how much should be sacrificed, in pursuit of the cure.
What the critics say
“The Woman with the Cure is a scrupulously researched history lesson wrapped up in a modern exploration of the evolving role women have played in society. Dorothy Horstmann and her contemporaries deserve their place in America’s medical hall of fame and Lynn Cullen’s resurrection has done them justice.”—Atlanta Journal Constitution
“Everyone knows Sabin and Salk created the polio vaccine, but without the work of Dr. Dorothy Horstmann, there never would have been a vaccine in the first place. So huge applause to The Woman With the Cure for bringing Dorothy's brilliant work to the forefront—and for reminding us that women have always been in science—despite those who would pretend otherwise.”—Bonnie Garmus, New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry
“The warm and wonderful The Woman with the Cure, brings brilliantly to life the story of the real Dorothy Horstmann, whose extraordinary discovery made possible the vaccines that ended the polio pandemic of the 1940s and 50s. Lynn Cullen’s novel deftly breaks down the science and brilliantly delivers a complex cast of characters in a compelling page-turner of a novel about the race for the cure to that pandemic, and pulls from the shadows of history this extraordinary woman who literally changed our world. I could not put this astounding story down.”—Meg Waite Clayton, international bestselling author of The Postmistress of Paris