A Man Against Insanity

New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1957. First edition.

DE KRUIF'S STORY OF THE TRANSITION FROM LOBOTOMY TO DRUG THERAPY FOR MENTAL ILLNESS--SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR.

8 1/4 inches tall hardcover, green cloth bindint, gilt title to cover and spine, ink signature of author, dated 4/3/57 on title page, [i-vii], 246 pp, near fine in very good dust jacket with edge wear, in archival mylar sleeve.

PAUL DE KRUIF (1890 - 1971) was an American microbiologist and writer. Publishing as Paul de Kruif, he is known for his 1926 book, Microbe Hunters. In 1912, he graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree, and he remained there to obtain a Ph.D., which was granted in 1916. He immediately entered service as a private in Mexico on the Pancho Villa Expedition and afterwards served as a lieutenant and a captain in World War I in France. Because of his service in the Sanitary Corps, he had occasional contacts with leading French biologists of the period. After returning to the University of Michigan as an assistant professor, De Kruif briefly worked for the Rockefeller Institute (for Medical Research). He then became a full-time writer. De Kruif assisted Sinclair Lewis with his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Arrowsmith (1925) by providing the scientific and medical information required by the plot, along with character sketches.