Salvarsan

“The book fixes attention on the conditions these women faced — injected with the arsenic compound salvarsan, offered anti-hemorrhagic agents made from corpses, left to die of infection,” our reviewer, BK Fischer, writes.

The book fixes attention on the conditions these women faced — injected with the arsenic compound salvarsan, offered anti-hemorrhagic agents made from corpses, left to die of infection.

Bacterial resistance to Salvarsan started to emerge about halfway through that period, despite the drug’s limited use by comparison with modern antibiotics.

Salvarsan was one such drug, from a group of compounds known as arsphenamines.

“Or salvarsan,” the major interrupted quietly.