In the 1920s and ’30s, before the advent of antibiotics, doctors using phage therapy reported near miraculous cures for infections, even at the critical stage. The treatments, however, didn’t work in every case, and after the discovery of much more reliable antibiotics, starting with penicillin in the 1940s, phage therapy was ushered off the medical stage in the United States and Western Europe.
Anna Kuchment, an editor at Scientific American, labeled phage therapy The Forgotten Cure in her recent book, in which she says the practice took up residence behind the Iron Curtain where antibiotics were scarce.
