Missing Microbes

A clarion call to save humanity's most essential fellow creatures - and our health

Far beneath our skin exists an unfathomable, ancient universe - an internal ecosystem that is critical to our health. Dr Martin Blaser invites us into the wilds of the human `microbiome', unfurling its inner workings and evolution. For thousands of years, bacteria and human cells have co-existed in a relationship that has ensured the health and equilibrium of our body. But now, much like the natural world outside of us, our internal environment is being irrevocably destroyed. The culprit: some of our most revered medical advances - antibiotics - which appear to be linked to the epidemics of asthma, eczema, obesity, certain forms of cancer, and other diseases plaguing modern society.

In a book that stands as the Silent Spring of its day, Blaser sounds a provocative alarm that we ignore at our peril.