Antibiotics add, on average, twenty years to our lives. For over seventy years, since the manufacture of penicillin in 1943, we have survived extraordinary operations and life-threatening infections. We are so familiar with these wonder drugs that we take them for granted. This book deals with this topic.

Professor Dame Sally Davies is the Chief Medical Officer for England. She is a haematologist with specialist research interest in sickle cell disease. But in her advisory post she guides government decisions on diverse subjects such as superbugs, drug trials and obesity. She developed the National Institute for Health Research in 2006 with a budget of ¿1 billion. She is an Emeritus Professor at Imperial College.