Even the most powerful men in the world are human—they get sick, take dubious drugs, drink too much, contemplate suicide, fret about ailing parents, and bury people they love. Young Richard Nixon watched two brothers die of tuberculosis, even while doctors monitored a suspicious shadow on his own lungs. John Kennedy received last rites four times as an adult, and Lyndon Johnson suffered a "belly buster" of a heart attack. David Blumenthal and James A. Morone explore how modern presidents h...

Just how much good has medicine done over the years? And how much damage does it continue to do? The history of medicine begins with Hippocrates in the fifth century BC. Yet until the invention of antibiotics in the 1930s doctors, in general, did their patients more harm than good. In this fascinating new look at the history of medicine, David Wootton argues that for more than 2300 years doctors have relied on their patients' misplaced faith in their ability to cure. Over and over again ma...

Depression is an experience known to millions. But arguments rage on aspects of its definition and its impact on societies present and past: do drugs work, or are they merely placebos? Is the depression we have today merely a construct of the pharmaceutical industry? Is depression under- or over-diagnosed? Should we be paying for expensive 'talking cure' treatments like psychoanalysis or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy? Here, Clark Lawlor argues that understanding the history of depression i...

Multiple Sclerosis: The History of a Disease won a 2005 ForeWord Book of the Year Silver Medal!The basic facts about multiple sclerosis are well known: it is the most common neurologic disease of young adults, usually beginning with episodic attacks of neurologic symptoms, then entering a progressive phase some years later. Its onset has an average age of 30, and occurs in about 1 in 500 individuals of European ancestry living primarily in temperate climates. There appears...

Cultures of Plague opens a new chapter in the history of medicine. Neither the plague nor the ideas it stimulated were static, fixed in a timeless Galenic vacuum over five centuries, as historians and scientists commonly assume. As plague evolved in its pathology, modes of transmission, and the social characteristics of its victims, so too did medical thinking about plague develop. This study of plague imprints from academic medical treatises to plague poetry highlights the most f...

**In the tradition of incredible true stories from The Great Escape to Argo, Savage Will recounts a tale of survival, daring, and evasion behind enemy lines: that of American medics and nurses stranded for two months in Nazi-occupied Albania.“Amazing.”—The Washington Times • “New and surprising.”—America in WWII • “A must-read espionage and survival story.”—Marcus Brotherton • “Wonderfully entertaining”—Alex Kershaw**In 1943, men...

WINNER OF BEST POPULAR MEDICINE BOOK AT THE BMA MEDICAL BOOK AWARDSLONGLISTED FOR THE 2016 JHALAK PRIZEThe story of medicine in India is rich and complex: uniting cutting-edge technological developments with ancient cultural traditions.Aarathi Prasad investigates how Indian medicine came to be the way it is. Her travels will take her to bonesetter clinics in Jaipur and Hyderabad and the waiting-rooms of Bollywood's best plastic surge...

Named one of the "Ten must-read science histories" by Science MagazineIn a lifetime of practice, most physicians will never encounter a single case of PKU. Yet every physician in the industrialized world learns about the disease in medical school and, since the early 1960s, the newborn heel stick test for PKU has been mandatory in many countries. Diane B. Paul and Jeffrey P. Brosco’s beautifully written book explains this paradox.PKU (phenylketonur...

Between August 1918 and March 1919 the Spanish influenza spread worldwide, claiming over 25 million lives - more people than perished in the fighting of the First World War. It proved fatal to at least a half-million Americans. Yet, the Spanish flu pandemic is largely forgotten today. In this vivid narrative, Alfred W. Crosby recounts the course of the pandemic during the panic-stricken months of 1918 and 1919, measures its impact on American society, and probes the curious loss of nationa...

Despite several studies on the social, cultural, and political histories of medicine and of public health in different parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, local and national focuses still predominate, and there are few panoramic studies that analyze the overarching tendencies in the development of health in the region. This comprehensive book summarizes the social history of medicine, medical education, and public health in Latin America and places it in dialogue with the internation...

Famous as the catalyst of the fight or flight response, adrenaline has also received forensic attention as a perfect, untraceable poison—and rumors persist of its power to revive the dead. True to the spirit of its topic, Adrenaline is a stimulating journey that reveals the truth behind adrenaline’s scientific importance and popular appeal.

A lively, moving novel that vividly recreates the 1880s: the harsh lives; the attitudes to madness and to drunkenness; and the strength of friendship and love. After an accident at four years old, Libby Budd has difficulty speaking. Her devoted father refuses to see there's a problem - even when she starts having fits, seeing dead people and, as she grows older, behaving erratically and violently. In the 1880s, all the doctors can recommend is that she be sent to an asylum...