Prelude_ 50,000 Pills

Chapter 1: Plants that Bring Joy
Chapter 2 Lady Mary's Monster
Chapter 3 Mickey Finn
Chapter 4: The Golden Age of Heroin
Chapter 5: The Magic Bullet
Chapter 6: The Last Frontier on Earth

Interlude_ Golden Age

Chapter 7: Sex, Birth Control Pills, and Viagra
Chapter 8: The Magic Ring
Chapter 9 My Personal Judgment
Chapter 10: The Completion of Blood

Finale_The Future of New Drug Development

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References
Translator's Note

The best authors and the best translators meet.
A vivid account of the realities of the medical world, lauded by a pharmacist-turned-translator.

The author of this book, Thomas Hager, received the American Chemical Society's Grady-Stack Medal for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public and the National Academies of Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering's Communications Award.
His book, The Alchemy of Air, was also selected as a book of the year by Kirkus Reviews.
He started out as a scientific researcher, then became a science communicator, then worked as a science journalist, and is currently recognized as a science writer.
His writing captivates readers with its vividly depicted characters, quirky charm, surprising twists, and page-turning plots, all while grounded in solid scientific information.
His strength lies in weaving together vast amounts of data and transforming them into compelling stories.


Thomas Hager's Ten Drugs was a perfect fit for translator Yang Byeong-chan.
The translator of this book, Yang Byeong-chan, studied business administration in college and worked at a bank and securities firm in his youth. Later, he entered pharmacy school and worked as a pharmacist and translator for 10 years.
His work has recently received significant recognition, with his translation of The Evolution of Beauty winning the Korean Publication Culture Award, the highest honor for a translator, in 2019.
In that sense, translator Yang Byeong-chan introduced this book as a book that was ‘a perfect fit’ for him.
This is because he possesses a wealth of knowledge related to science and medicine, while also being able to effectively interpret the logic of large capital.
He also expressed regret that recent books on medicine have failed to move beyond structuralism and functionalism, instead becoming mired in birth myths and heroic tales.
However, 『Ten Drugs』 is special in that it examines not only the birth and evolution of drugs, but also the political, economic, social, and cultural background surrounding them, as befits a book written by a journalist.
It is said to deliver an important message in a society that recommends medicine, an era of chronic illness, and a society that treats everything with medicine.
At the end of the translator's note, translator Yang Byeong-chan adds that he agrees with the book's opinions even as a pharmacist, not just as a translator.
It is “not to let patients take medicine they don’t need.”

Was it not Edward Jenner who first administered the vaccine, but a noblewoman?
Highlighting the exploits of hidden heroes

As the world reels from the pandemic, people are desperately hoping for a COVID-19 vaccine.
We know Edward Jenner as the 'father of vaccines'.
Edward Jenner is revered as a pioneer of vaccines for popularizing the 'smallpox method', which uses the safer 'cowpox' of cows, instead of the 'inoculation method', which involves inoculating humans with smallpox.
However, not many people remember the contributions of Lady Mary, who spread the method of incanting in Europe.
Mary Pierpont, who was born into an aristocratic British family, became Mary Montagu after her marriage, and when her husband, a diplomat, was posted to Turkey, she followed him and began living there, which was unusual for the time.
Unlike Europe, there were not many cases of smallpox in Turkey, so he carefully observed and applied the folk remedies used in Türkiye to his children.
When her children were spared from smallpox thanks to this folk remedy, Lady Mary persuaded Caroline, the Duchess of Cambridge, then Crown Prince of England, George II.
After experimental vaccinations on prisoners and orphans (what would later be called the "first clinical trials"), smallpox vaccination became widespread, reaching Europe and the Americas.
Throughout the process, Lady Mary's intense curiosity, keen observation, and bold drive played a decisive role.
Thanks to it, mankind was able to eradicate smallpox, one of the most terrifying infectious diseases in history.


Not just Lady Mary.
Gerhard Domagk, who developed sulfa drugs, Henri Laborie, who played a crucial role in the invention of antihistamines, and César Milstein and Georges Köhler, who jointly created monoclonal antibodies and won the Nobel Prize, have all achieved achievements worthy of being included on the list of 'heroes who saved humanity.'
This book dramatically and lightly portrays the struggles of various figures who played an active role in the history of medicine.


There is no perfect medicine in the world.
The dark history of medicine is as important as the history of medicine itself.

This book deals with the dark history of medicine as much as the history of medicine itself.
The message that this book repeatedly emphasizes is that there is no perfect medicine in the world.
Every medicine has two sides.
Every time a big pharmaceutical company announces a new drug, they market it as if they've found a "miracle drug" that will solve everything, but there's no such drug in the world.
There never was, and there never will be.
If you forget this, you may suffer from the side effects of the medicine.


Many people know about the enormous damage opium caused to China.
Opium has been used as a medicine in the West for a long time.
Opium is a highly addictive drug, but it primarily acts as a pain reliever.
From ancient Sumer through Egypt and Rome, through to the Romantic era of the late 18th century, opium was one of the most widely used medicines.
However, Britain, which was trying to continue trade with China, used the plantations it operated to supply large quantities of opium to China in order to overcome the trade deficit.
Then, a huge number of people in China became addicted to opium, which eventually led to the downfall of the Qing Dynasty.
The harm caused by opiates continues to this day, with hundreds of thousands of people in the United States still addicted to opioids.
There are countless cases of addiction to drugs intended to treat opium or other addictions.
Big pharmaceutical companies are constantly developing new drugs to treat opioid addiction, but soon people become addicted to these new drugs.


Drugs like 'statins' are a bit ambiguous.
Statins are cholesterol-lowering drugs that are known to lower cholesterol levels and thus reduce the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
Heart attack remains one of America's deadliest killers.
Therefore, the proportion of middle-aged and older people taking statin drugs is high.
However, research results showed that the relationship between statins, cholesterol, and heart disease was not as simple as expected.
While it is true that taking statins lowers cholesterol levels, lowering cholesterol below normal levels does not provide any additional benefit in terms of cardiovascular disease.
Because there are so many factors that cause heart disease, controlling cholesterol alone does not increase the effect of preventing heart disease.
The book's tentative conclusion is that while statin drugs are necessary for patients at risk for high cholesterol, it's difficult to say whether they will work for the majority of people who aren't, and they may even have greater side effects.
Yet, statins are widely prescribed to far too many people, even those who are not at risk.
This is a matter of interest to pharmaceutical companies.
Pharmaceutical companies have the power to significantly increase the number of potential statin users, even by changing the standards for disease management.
And in doing so, they create and sustain markets worth hundreds of billions of dollars.


This book provides a balanced overview of the process by which large pharmaceutical companies develop, distribute, and sell drugs.
It is true that pharmaceutical companies pour astronomical amounts of money into improving human health.
On the one hand, pharmaceutical companies do not hesitate to use all kinds of lobbying and exaggerated advertising to sell the drugs they develop.
In order to take medicine wisely in a society that recommends medicine, shouldn't consumers also have some understanding of this trend?

What kind of drugs will be available in the future?
Beyond the history of medicine, we explore its future.

In the summer of 2015, former US President Jimmy Carter announced that he was dying.
He was diagnosed with a highly metastatic cancer, melanoma, that had spread to his liver and brain.
He had a family history and was in his 90s.
And less than four months later, Carter issued a second statement.
This time, they say the cancer is gone.
It wasn't just that the road was visible, it had completely disappeared.
After a full body scan showed no signs of cancer, doctors declared him cured.
During those four months, Jimmy Carter tried a treatment using a new monoclonal antibody called pembrolizumab.


About 100 years ago, antibiotics were invented and miraculously saved people from dying of bacterial infections.
Even now, similar drugs are being developed.
And the paradigm of medicine is changing in many ways.
Digital medicines are being developed and personalized medicine using genetic testing results is becoming possible.
On the other hand, even large pharmaceutical companies that seemed poised for rapid growth are facing a crisis.
Nowadays, it is not easy to develop a new drug that can recover the investment even with a huge budget.


While all these stories are fascinating, the book is even more valuable because it hides a weighty message throughout.
The habit of trying to solve health-related problems with only drugs is not good, and rather than relying solely on large pharmaceutical companies for new drug development, we should seek out other models based on public funds that pursue the public good.
Over the past 100 years, human life expectancy has increased dramatically and the aging population has progressed rapidly, largely due to the power of medicine.
The invention of the birth control pill made it easier for women to enter society, and chlorpromazine allowed countless patients to receive outpatient treatment at home instead of in psychiatric hospitals.
Medicine has changed human life and history, and will continue to do so.
But that's not enough.
We can better utilize medicine only when we are aware of the shadows it casts as well as the gifts it offers.
As you read Ten Drugs, drawn by its captivating story, you might find yourself thinking about it at least once before taking your medication.