Thomas Goetz Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

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Thomas Goetz
Photo: Christopher Michel

Thomas Goetz

Thomas Goetz Biography

Thomas Goetz is a noted science journalist and healthcare innovator. The entrepreneur-in-residence at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, he is also co-founder of the health technology company, Iodine. The former executive editor of WIRED, his writing has been selected repeatedly for the Best American Science Writing and Best American Technology Writing anthologies.

Thomas holds a Master of Public Health degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master's degree in American literature from the University of Virginia. He graduated from Bates College, where he learned to juggle five balls at once (he's since back down to three). He lives in San Francisco.

Thomas Goetz's website

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Interview

Thomas Goetz, author of The Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis discusses Germ Theory, science, and the impact of technology on society.

What is the Germ Theory, and why was it so important?
The Germ Theory is the hypothesis that many diseases are caused by microbes, not by the body itself or by some other cause such as miasma – bad air. The idea that some diseases were pathogenic or contagious had been around for centuries, but it wasn't until Louis Pasteur in the 1860s and then Robert Koch in the 1870s that enough evidence was marshaled to make the argument convincing. In particular, it was Koch, with his Postulates – a series of conditions that must be met to prove a microbial cause of disease – who produced a method by which science could definitively establish the cause of disease.

Pasteur and Koch's work on the Germ Theory constitutes the birth of modern medicine, when science finally began to explore the true causes of disease – and therefore to determine vaccines or treatments for those diseases. Once the germ theory was established in laboratories, at last hygienists and social reformers could finally attack the causes of infectious disease, which were by far the leading cause of death in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This insight into causes pushed hygiene forward. Within a few decades, infectious disease was no ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Thomas Goetz at BookBrowse
The Remedy jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Thomas Goetz but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

    Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

    Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz (b. 1978) was born and raised in Philadelphia. In 1996, she graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia, and moved to New York City to attend NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

    ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Remedy

    Try:
    Dr. Mütter's Marvels
    by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

  • Julian Barnes

    Julian Barnes

    Julian Barnes was born in Leicester, England on January 19, 1946. He was educated at the City of London School from 1957 to 1964 and at Magdalen College, Oxford, from which he graduated in modern languages (with honors) in ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Remedy

    Try:
    Arthur & George
    by Julian Barnes

We recommend 9 similar authors

View all 9 Read-Alikes

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A love triangle reveals deadly secrets in this thriller for fans of The Paper Palace and Where the Crawdads Sing.

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