The Coffin Cure

"The Coffin Cure" by Alan Edward Nourse is a science fiction story from the last century about scientific dreams and the problems they can create. Dr. Chauncey Patrick Coffin thinks he has made a vaccine that will stop the common cold and change the world. The story shows what happens when he, Dr. Phillip Dawson, and Dr. Jacob Miles find out their cure has a strange side effect: it changes how they smell things. At first, they are heroes, but soon their world turns upside down because everyday smells become too strong and awful to handle. The doctors work hard to fix the problem, but their experiments lead to even stranger outcomes. The book looks at how science and nature need to be in balance, teaching that even good ideas can have very bad results when scientists don't fully think things through.