Telling the Stories Behind the Sciences—Thomas Hager—Author of Ten Drugs: How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine

Finding Genius Podcast

Richard Jacobs

Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2019

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The average US citizen consumes 50,000 pharmaceutical pills over the course of their lifetime, at least 50 percent of Americans take a prescription drug regularly, and many people who are over the age of 50 regularly take between five and 10 different prescription medications. With this much consumption, the fact that these drugs impact our lives is unquestionable, but what are those effects, and are we even aware of all of them? According to Thomas Hager, the use of pharmaceuticals impacts us in ways we don't even realize and have been shaping culture for decades now.

Hager was working on a Ph.D. in medical microbiology when he came to the realization that, despite how interesting he found the material, he simply didn't want to work in a lab for the rest of his life. As a result, he switched educational tracks, pursued a degree in journalism from the University of Oregon, and merged his love of medicine and science with his love for writing. He has since become a well-known author of narrative nonfiction, turning science into the stories that exist within it.

On today's episode, he discusses aspects of his newest book, Ten Drugs: How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine, comments on the current state of drug use in America, and clues us into what his next book might be about. Tune in for all the details, check out thomashager.net, and find his books on Amazon, Kindle, or your local bookstore.

Transcript

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0:58.0	Thank you. Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Future Tech and Future Tech Health
1:08.5	podcast and I have Thomas Hager. He's an author of a lot of really
1:12.2	super interesting books that I recently read such as 10 drugs
1:16.4	Outplants, powders, and pills have shaped the history of medicine. He has also another book, The Demon under the Microscope, about salsa drugs and several other titles that they're a really great read. So, Tom, thanks for coming. How you doing?
1:29.0	I'm good. Thanks for having me.
1:31.0	Yeah, what genre of writing would you call your books?
1:35.8	Is it, I guess, scientific history or what is it?
1:39.7	You know, I would, I think that basically what I'm trying to do is to write books that bring non-scientists.
	...

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