From Tragedy the Antibiotic Age is Born

Abstract

”450 DIE AS FLAMES AND PANIC TRAP COCOANUT GROVE CROWD... “¹ screamed the headlines of the Boston Herald on Sunday morning, November 29, 1942, filling almost the entire top half of the front page (Figure 1.1). The Boston Sunday Globe likewise flashed “400 DEAD IN HUB NIGHTCLUB FIRE. HUNDREDS HURT IN PANIC AS THE COCOANUT GROVE BECOMES WILD INFERNO.”² This was the most devastating fire in the history of Boston and the worst in America since Chicago’s Iroquois Theater disaster in 1903 that killed 575 people. The Cocoanut Grove disaster could have been even worse, had not advances in medical treatment in the previous 40 years helped in the survival of many victims.