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In Brain Fever, the internationally renowned medical scientist, Richard Moxon FRS, shares his experiences of bacterial meningitis, a fearful and devastating infection of the brain. In a clear, non-technical style, he explains what meningitis is, what causes it, who gets it and how research has come up with vaccines that can prevent it.
A paediatrician, Moxon engages the reader in a compelling story of how chance, opportunity and passion drew him into researching the bacteria that are the lethal assassins of unsuspecting, previously healthy people, especially young children. The reader is taken on an exciting journey from his boyhood dream to study medicine to adventurous experiences as a junior doctor in London, a ship’s surgeon and then a trainee in infectious diseases in Boston, USA. There he became hooked on a research career and in the subsequent four decades, first as a professor at Johns Hopkins and then at Oxford University, Moxon traces his personal involvement with an extraordinary and inspiring group of scientists who pioneered a milestone in medical history: the development of vaccines to prevent bacterial meningitis.
In this must-read book, Brain Fever provides expert insight into what it takes to develop a vaccine. Moxon takes the reader from basic research through clinical trials to the logistics and politics of implementing a vaccine. As we are learning from the Covid-19 pandemic, it is vaccines that we rely on to fight and overcome the devastation caused by virulent pathogens. His message is clear and challenging: no other intervention in the history of medicine confers a greater public health benefit than immunisation.
