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In seventh grade I read Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters and determined to be a scientist like Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Robert Koch, Walter Reed, and Paul Ehrlich—an independent searcher for truth, a benefactor of mankind. That wonderful book, along with its fictional counterparts like Arrowsmith (for whose writing de Kruif was a consultant), helped shape my scientific and personal ideals. They also led to a continuing interest in the history of science. As I became more sophisticated in that field, woe to de Kruif. The heroes grew less heroic, became more products of their times, circumstances, and psychologies than pure cultures of idealism. Their individual discoveries, as isolated “breakthroughs,” seemed less spectacularly dramatic. De Kruif's authoritative knowledge of the inner thoughts of his subjects turned out to be no less creative construction than Sinclair Lewis's descriptions of Arrowsmith's psychology. However, the broad outlines of what de Kruif wrote about the history of microbiology were correct and the microbiology itself was the most accurate available when he wrote in the mid-20s.
Immaterial Facts is in many ways like Microbe Hunters. It describes Freud's discovery of the central role of psychic, as opposed to material, reality in psychological development and Melanie Klein's elaboration of this idea. Caper's style is wonderfully clear and engaging. His sharp focus on psychic reality, the “immaterial facts” of his title, constitutes a unifying theme that integrates the wide range of psychoanalytic ideas he explains. Like de Kruif, he views scientific development as a progressive process in which new ideas build on and correct old ones in a march toward Truth.