The Woman with the Cure

later."

Her dream hadn't quite left her as Barry prodded her down the hall. It must have come from studying Group A streptococcus under a microscope earlier. What robust lives bacteria lived! When they found themselves in a favorable new situation, like a plate of blood agar, the happy little hedonists rejoiced at their good luck and threw themselves into a frenzy of feasting, after which they procreated, then procreated some more, until there was nothing left to squeeze out of life and then they died. She was almost fond of the tiny terrors, so bold, so hungry, so hell-bent on having it all. She would have been fond of them, had they not claimed millions of human lives.

An ominous mechanical whoooooossshhh-GROAN, whoooooossshhh-GROAN broke into her thoughts. Behind the windows of the polio ward, nurses could be seen rushing between toddlers crying in their cribs and kids laid out in full-body casts. Other nurses tended to the source of the metallic moaning, the ventilators containing individual children.

In medical school, Dorothy had asked, once, to be put into an "iron lung," to see how it felt. A tall teenage patient had just graduated to a cuirass respirator, the kind that fits on the patient's chest, and had vacated his extra-long chamber model. Two nurses hesitantly agreed to Dorothy's request, glancing at each other when she laid herself down on a gurney.

"Transfer me in!" she'd said. A crinolined lady taking a picnic to watch the first battle of the Civil War could have been no more jovial.

The nurses wheeled her next to the ventilator and, in a real-life Gulliver's Travels situation, heaved her up from the stretcher and dropped her onto a cushioned tray. They then slid the tray into the tank and closed the coffin-like lid, latching it shut with just her head jutting out.

"Ready!"

Someone turned it on. With a clank and a groan, the machine wound up. Pressure bore down on

scientific imagination shook the medical community, and Lynn Cullen s re-imagining of her life and work is powerful, visionary and inspired."
Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times Bestselling Author of Surviving Savannah and Becoming Mrs. Lewis

The warm and wonderful The Woman with the Cure, brings brilliantly to life the story of the real Dorothy Horstmann, whose extraordinary discovery made possible the vaccines that ended the polio pandemic of the 1940s and 50s. Lynn Cullen s novel deftly breaks down the science and brilliantly delivers a complex cast of characters in a compelling page-turner of a novel about the race for the cure to that pandemic, and pulls from the shadows of history this extraordinary woman who literally changed our world. I could not put this astounding story down.
Meg Waite Clayton, international bestselling author of The Postmistress of Paris

Lynn Cullen shows off her mastery of the craft in a thrilling and heart-wrenching tale about the race to eradicate polio. We meet Salk, Sabine, and the countless other figures who worked together and sometimes against one another to save lives. We also meet mothers, wives, and other women whose sacrifices enabled progress. But at the center of the story is Dorothy Horstmann, the brilliant but unheralded American heroine who charted her own course with one clear goal in mind: saving lives. And it was her discovery that enabled the vaccines. This timely and important novel will touch you, inspire you, and leave you with a sense of hope about what dedicated scientists can achieve.
Stephanie Dray, New York Times bestselling author of The Women of Chateau Lafayette

"In The Woman With the Cure, Lynn Cullen gives us a meticulous and engaging account of Dorothy Horstmann, another woman whose accomplishments have been overshadowed by men. Without Dorothy s determination and courage there would be no vaccine for polio, and in this engrossing, timely read, we finally know how much she and so many other women like her sacrificed in order to accomplish the impossible. HERstory at its finest.
Melanie Benjamin, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Aviator s Wife and The Children s Blizzard

"In this all-engrossing and poignant historical novel, Lynn Cullen expertly brings this unsung heroine s story to the forefront with her portrayal of a fearless woman whose accomplishments largely eclipsed those of her male colleagues and helped save a generation of children. The research that must have gone into this novel is mindboggling and yet Cullen delivers it with the skill of a masterful storyteller. I was rooting for Dorothy the whole way through. Her journey will inspire and stay with readers long after the last page is turned."
Renee Rosen, USA Today Bestselling author of The Social Graces