AIR-BORNE

What we know—and continue to learn—about a substance that sustains us.

In this enlightening history, Zimmer writes of efforts to study the “gaseous ocean in which we all live,” which “contains exhaled viruses that can then be inhaled.” Air itself became an embattled space during the Covid-19 pandemic, but as the New York Times science writer shows, such discord isn’t without precedent. His opening chapters evoke dreadful images—14th-century plague doctors tried to evade infection by wearing masks with beaks that contained, among other substances, “the ground remains of human mummies”—and explain advances made by visionary scientists and physicians. In 1864, responding to a colleague who disagreed with his theories about airborne microorganisms, Louis Pasteur used lab tools and edifying props during a pivotal Sorbonne lecture on his “hunt for floating germs.” Inspired by Pasteur’s breakthroughs, Joseph Lister, a British surgeon, began using carbolic acid when treating compound fractures, substantially reducing infections. In the 20th century, William Firth Wells and Mildred Weeks Wells, husband-and-wife collaborators, made essential contributions to the study of airborne viruses. But, Zimmer notes, “their difficult personalities” and misinterpretations of their findings robbed them of due credit, a measure of which arrived posthumously when doctors treating Covid-19 cited the importance of William’s work (while mostly ignoring Mildred’s role). A recurring theme is the “failure of imagination” that has prevented governments and global organizations alike from recognizing “the full threat of an airborne disease.” Such failures, many scientists believe, contributed to avoidable Covid-19 deaths. Alongside informative chapters about terrifying government projects to build airborne biological weapons, Zimmer recounts some of the field’s more cinematic episodes. In the 1930s, researchers dropped a spore-collecting device from a helium balloon piloted by military men wearing leather football helmets.

An astute, accessible look at science’s hard-won understanding of our air.