In , Dorothy Horstmann is finishing her medical residency at Vanderbilt, where she sticks out as a female physician and for her unusual height. Meanwhile, her clinical instincts, dedication, and inquiring mind go largely unnoticed. This is a battle she will wage, with varying energy and success throughout her distinguished career researching the poliomyelitis virus. Dorothy Horstmann, epidemiologist, virologist, and pediatrician courtesy Dr. George Miller and the National Library of Medicine.
Cullen understands that world and where it came from. Waiters circulated among the candlelit tables with drinks. Laughter spouted from behind herβa young woman was enjoying the attention of suitors.
Cullen re-creates the atmosphere of terror that breeds prejudices against strangers or neighbors who might somehow spread the infection. She also nails the fury of the media: protect our kids, already! That pressure fans the intense rivalries among scientists and research institutions for funding, inevitably scarce, and the fame and glory that money might lead to.
Every scientists wants to be first to make the big discovery and reap the rewards. Except Dorothy Horstmann. She believes the killer spends a brief moment in the bloodstream, but practically nobody else does, and she wants to prove them wrong. He may be right. Sabin needs his wife, secretary, and female assistants to carry his coattails and pick up whatever he drops, whereas Dorothy has only herself.
That may come from the lack of ruthlessness Sabin criticizesβshe refuses to treat a potential spouse the way he treats Mrs. Sabinβbut it also speaks to which attachments she values most. As a woman, she has fewer valid choices, but still, work comes first, and she can never bring herself to set even the most elementary boundaries. As you might surmise, the narrative depends on much scientific and historical fact as the decades progress. Cullen manages to introduce nearly all of it in seamless fashion, without resorting to information dumps, and makes it interesting besides.
