Book Description

Quick, who won the Nobel Prize for discovering the double helical structure of DNA?Most people would say Watson and Crick.But most people would make Maurice Wilkins very upset.The Rodney Dangerfield of biology, Wilkins shared the prize with Watson and Crick but missed out on the limelight, due largely to Watson's hit book, The Double Helix.Wilkins thought the book was so misleading he asked Harvard University Press not to publish it. Things have quieted down a bit now, and Wilkins is now telling the story his way.This book tells how he showed his colleagues the x-ray picture that gave them their crucial insight, and about his interactions with Rosalind Franklin, the researcher who actually created the picture, and who also received very little credit for her role in the discovery. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the DNA discovery. Finally Wilkins gets to have his say. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Is this the True Story of the Discovery of the Double Helix?
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There is a joke by a famous comedian that asks who the three tenors are. Most people know two of them and the third man is known as "what's his name." The same situation occurs when you ask people who shared the 1962 Noble Prize (in physiology or medicine) for their discovery of the discovery of DNA (and other nucleic acid achievements). Most people say, "(Dr.) Watson, (Dr.) Crick, and what's his name."

What's his name is Dr. Maurice Wilkins (born: 1916). Most people are unaware that Wilkins was a brilliant physicist (he worked on the Manhattan or Atomic Bomb Project during World War Two) and later on was a biophysicist whose contribution was essential for discovering DNA's structure. Wilkins states this more eloquently: "[My] team of researchers at King's [College, a division of the University of London in the UK] laid the foundations for the double helix structure that Watson and Crick [both of whom worked together in a different UK laboratory] demonstrated so peruasively with their model in 1953."

Wilkins ten chapter autobiography is divided into three parts: those days before, during, and after the discovery of DNA's structure. This book contains almost forty black-and-white photographs. Wilkins' aim in writing this book was to tell his life story (that begins before he was born) and, perhaps more importantly, clear up "the tensions, accusations, confusions, and controversies that have attended the telling and retelling of the DNA story."

I felt that Wilkins was totally honest (and at a times naive) throughout this book. Some of the reasons I say he was honest are as follows:

(1) He was an octogenarian when this book was published and thus I feel he had nothing to hide at this advanced age.

(2) He reveals many aspects of his personal life that many people would be reticent to reveal, especially in print. For example, he tells us he "felt a bit suicidal at times."

(3) He says many times that in retrospect "he should of" or "he could of" done things differently. I got the impression that at times he was a bit hard on himself.

(4) Finally, he tells us that both he and Crick found Watson's book "The Double Helix" (1968) "distasteful." They both protested to Watson's publisher. (Wilkins said Watson's book was "badly written, juvenile, and in bad taste.") As a result the book was not published. (However, another publisher published it, and the rest is history.)

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Wilkins' book (at least for me) was the controversey surrounding Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958), an "x-ray [diffraction] specialist" who worked in the same lab as Wilkins. He gives us detailed information of what occurred. From other books (particularly the 1975 book by Ann Sayre), I learned that two major things occurred:

(1) There was tension between Frankin and Wilkins. I got the impression from these other books that this tension was due to personality and gender differences. Not true. Wilkins explains why this tension really arose and gives proof of his assertion.

(2) Wilkins gave a critical X-ray photograph (a reproduction of it is included in Wilkins' book) taken by Franklin to Watson without her permission. This photo gave Watson the concrete evidence for DNA's structure. Again, this is not entirely accurate according to Wilkins.

This critical X-ray photo brings up the question of the recognition Franklin should have received. For example, would she have been a contender for the Nobel Prize? I would say yes if this prize was only for determining the structure of DNA. But, as Wilkins explains, he, Crick, and Watson DID NOT receive the prize for this! I checked this out at the offical Nobel Prize internet site. (Note that the inside front and back flaps of Wilkins' book incorrectly says they were awarded the prize for discovering DNA's structure.)

Even so, was Franklin recognized for her achievements and contributions at this time? Watson and Crick did not recognize her for her achievements in their Nobel Prize lectures. However, Wilkins did recognize her (as well as others who made major contributions) in his lecture. (Their actual lectures can also be found at the official Nobel Prize internet site.)

Finally, I still have a few minor questions regarding Wilkins' story. However, my major question is as follows: "Why did he wait half a century after the discovery of DNA's structure to tell his side of the story?"

In conclusion, this autobiography shows that Wilkins was a decent, honest, and brilliant scientist. He also clears up any misconceptions regarding the discovery of the structure of DNA. Be sure to read this book so as to learn the true story of Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins and the true story of the discovery of the structure of DNA!!

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A Good Man
The Third Man--The Autobiography of Maurice Wilkins
by Maurice Wilkins
Reviewed by Donald Siano

Wilkins was involved in one of the watershed scientific events of the twentieth century--the discovery of the double helical structure of DNA. He was the guy who really got the study of the x-ray diffraction studies going, and showed that the features seen were universal to a variety of different organisms, and therefore that it was an important scientific problem. He showed that the structure was probably helical, got Rosilind Franklin started on the problem, and was the link from her to Watson and Crick, who finally made the famous model that shook the world.

This book, published fifty years after, fills in some of the details of the event, correcting and contesting some claims made by others who have written on it. Some of his corrections are quite convincing. For example, a claim was made in one of the books on this affair that his research group contained only one other female, implying that he was something of a misogynist, while a picture of his laboratory coworkers in the book is about half female.

The tension between him and Franklin is made much of in historical accounts, and Wilkins unflinchingly covers this, and is pretty hard on himself too. The incident graphically shows how people from very different cultures (Franklin was a rich, pushy Jew) who are ostensibly working on a common goal can fail. Diversity in a laboratory group is not always the asset that the universal dogma asserts. His regrets and "could'a shoulda's" are revealing and even moving at times.

Another revelation in the book was his involvement in the Communist party, and his flirtation with Freudian psychology. A scientific education unfortunately appears not to immunize one completely from quackery.

The thing I took away from the book is how the simple stories generated and perpetuated in the mass media and in historical accounts are almost always wrong in important ways. Scientific discoveries and important inventions are almost always complicated events, only part of which is even known and understood by any single writer or even the actors involved. But more than that, practically every writer has his prejudices and angles to massage. Autobiographers are no exception to this, but Wilkins has added to our understanding, and should only be applauded for it.

Wilkins and the DNA structure
Maurice Wilkins was a first-rate scientist who was deeply involved in the most important scientific discovery of the 20th century- the discovery of the structure of DNA.

His story needs to be told, since he has been written about often by authors such as Watson, Crick, Anne Sayre, Brenda Maddox and others.

He was a central figure in the continuing saga of Rosalind

Franklin and her "Photograph 51", recently the subject of a televison documentary of the same title, and a previous BBC

special produced by Peter Goodchild some ten years ago.

He was clearly not the equal of Rosalind Franklin in
experimental ability, nor of Watson and Crick in their aggressive utilization of the work of others.

Perhaps the key story of this book was Wilkins' graciously declining co-authorship of the basic DNA Publication in Nature, which also, much to the relief of Watson and Crick, avoided having to acknowledge how they obtained Photograph 51.

As Sir John Maddox said recently, "If all these publications had arrived at Nature when I was Editor, I would have smelled a rat"

In any case, Wilkins comes off as a thoroughly decent person, although one wonders why he permitted the consistent publication
of articles representing Rosalind Franklin as one of his subordinates- which she never was. ... Read more

Book Description

From Jonathan Weiner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Beak of the Finch, comes His Brother's Keeper -- the story of a young entrepreneur who gambles on the risky science of gene therapy to try to save his brother's life.

Stephen Heywood was twenty-nine years old when he learned that he was dying of ALS -- Lou Gehrig's disease. Almost overnight his older brother, Jamie, turned himself into a genetic engineer in a quixotic race to cure the incurable. His Brother's Keeper is a powerful account of their story, as they travel together to the edge of medicine.

The book brings home for all of us the hopes and fears of the new biology. In this dramatic and suspenseful narrative, Jonathan Weiner gives us a remarkable portrait of science and medicine today. We learn about gene therapy, stem cells, brain vaccines, and other novel treatments for such nerve-death diseases as ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's -- diseases that afflict millions, and touch the lives of many more.

It turns out that the author has a personal stake in the story as well. When he met the Heywood brothers, his own mother was dying of a rare nerve-death disease. The Heywoods' gene therapist offered to try to save her, too.

"The Heywoods' story taught me many things about the nature of healing in the new millennium," Weiner writes. "They also taught me about what has not changed since the time of the ancients and may never change as long as there are human beings -- about what Lucretius calls ‘the ever-living wound of love.'

"The Heywoods mean the whole story to me now: an allegory from the edge of medicine. A story to make us ask ourselves questions that we have to ask but do not want to ask. How much of life can we engineer? How much is permitted us?

"What would you do to save your brother's life?"

Reviews (6)

I Won't Forget the Heywoods Anytime Soon
I just finished "His Brother's Keeper" and will not forget this family for a long time. This book is incredibly sad but it also shows the hope of a family trying to reverse the course of a terrible illness. It is a story of the turn of a new century, when there was hope in gene therapy, in internet start ups, in Dolly the sheep.

The characterization within this book was excellent. The people who stuck out for me were Jamie, his brother Stephen and Stephen's wife Wendy. Jamie is the epitome of the driven man. His energy pops off the pages. Stephen is the searcher, the world traveler and, as Weiner writes, the Gen-X "slacker." That is, until Stephen finds his calling in carpentry and is just as driven as his mechanical engineer/entrepreneur brother.

Wendy is introduced later in the narrative. She is by her boyfriend's (eventually husband's) side as he goes through the progression of the disease. Whether arguing with a neighbor or keeping a visage of hope for her husband, she is a valuable presence in Stephen's life and in this book.

The author Jonathan Weiner is part of the story as well. He is captivated by the Heywoods and readily acknowledges it. His own mother is ill, and, as a "science writer," he has both knowledge and hope for the promise of new therapies and cures. Weiner writes of medicine, of the Heywood brothers, wives and parents, of September eleventh (briefly), and primarily, of hope. Hope and family are at the heart of this sad story of the new millennium.

Author's "cause" not clear
"His Brother's Keeper" is the author's extremely personal book and each reader's reaction is correspondingly likely to be uniquely (and probably intensely) personal. Thus I doubt if my own opinion expressed here will have any great generality. I'll post it anyway and apologize in advance for its specificity.

This is the third book about science and scientists by Jonathan Weiner that I have read. Based on what I saw as significant evolution in skill in the second ("Time, Love, Memory"), I had high expectations for this third. The book means to tell two interwoven stories. One is the very specific yet compellingly multi-faceted one of a young man, Stephen Haywood, who contracts an incurable disease (ALS, or "Lou Gehrig's disease) and of how his family reacts. The second means to generalize from that by relating it to how genetics, gene therapy, and other radically new treatments are challenging the accepted norms of medical research. This interplay of the particular and the universal is the approach that Weiner seemed to have mastered in his previous work.

It is a third narrative that, in my view and as Weiner almost admits, causes this account to go off course. At about the same time that he embarked on this project, the author learns that his mother is also the victim of an incurable neurological disease. As he struggles to come to terms with this devastating diagnosis, he describes how he is inextricably seduced by the efforts of Stephen Haywood's entrepreneurial brother to accelerate the discovery of a revolutionary cure for ALS and perhaps other related disorders.

The book radiates sadness from the beginning and you might want to steal yourself, as I did, by resolutely distancing yourself from its subjects. (This was a strategy that was unavailable to Weiner once he learned of his mother's illness.) Before their collision with ALS, the Haywoods were a privileged and blessed family, characterized by charm, intelligence, a prosperity that exceeded most, an excess of good taste, and apparently no notable good works. Weiner strives to convinces us that they are not just charming but also sympathetic and admirable people - "grace under pressure" is one of his professed themes -but he achieves that only for Stephen.

Tolstoy taught us that there is uniqueness in every unhappy family. The Haywood story achieves uniqueness in large part because of Stephen's older brother Jamie. At the beginning of the account, just before Stephen's diagnosis, Jamie is distinguished by two characteristics: he is remarkably tied to his brother and he has happened to have just made his way into the Biotechnology field. Trained and successful as a Mechanical Engineer, his talent and drive have propelled him into more entrepreneurial pursuits. This is 1996, and where better to be an ambitious, driven entrepreneur than in Biotech. He joins the Neurosciences Institute, with the charter to "package the think-tank's ideas and turn them into money." The scientists there believe that their research puts them on the verge of being able to "cure the uncurable." It is a time of great hubris, both scientific and economic, and Jamie has found an epicenter.

When he learns that his brother has one of those "uncurable" diseases, Jamie launches his own foundation to find the cure. Weiner traces Jamie's various battles and tries to relate these efforts to the larger story of modern neuroscience. But the author's own reactions increasingly compete for the focus of the story. He too is seeking a cure for an uncurable disease, that of his mother. His objectivity is undermined, and his ability to distinguish hype from reality is incurably compromised.

We do get fascinating and tantalizing glimpses into the science, business, and personalities of genetic therapy, but these serve only to make us wish for a more developed treatment. Weiner is a surreptitiously artful writer whose style is usually characterized by paragraphs that are compact but commanding and authoritative. He crafts many of those here, but not to the same effect as in his earlier work. In fact, this book frequently does not seem crafted at all, just avalanched from an emotional precipice. The aspects of the story beyond that of the Haywoods and Weiners are difficult to follow as scientists, researchers, and theories of neurological behavior flicker in and out of the account, and there's no index to help those of us with less than encyclopedic memories.

In the closing Acknowledgements, the author says this in thanking his father: "[h]e would much rather have kept our own story in the family, and I hope he will feel that the cause was good." This seems to me to be a measure of the both the strength and weakness of "His Brother's Keeper." It is obviously a heartfelt work that attempts great personal honesty. Yet we are left not quite sure what the cause was.

A beautiful book
"His Brother's Keeper: A Story from the Edge of Medicine" is is a beautiful book.

At age 29, just when he is finding himself, Stephen Heywood, a carpenter and house restorer, is diagnosed with ALS -- Lou Gehrig's disease. His brother Jamie, an MIT-trained engineer, turns his life upside, and adapts his engineering know-how as quickly as he can in a quixotic effort to save his brother. Corralling cowboy scientists and traditional experts along the way, he puts together a team to work on a few different ideas, including his, which is the most promising--a kind of gene therapy. This is one of the best books I have ever read.

Weiner', who won the Pulitzer Prize for the equally wonderful but very different "The Beak of the Finch," interweaves analogies and information from classic texts, from his own mother's struggle with a different neurodegenerative disease, and from intimate exposure to the Heywood family, into his narrative of the brothers' lives to create a phenomenally rich mix of philosophy, medical ethics, and up-to the minute science-- and above all, love. Weiner brings all of his incrdible intelligence and talent--along with real emotion--to bear in this unforgettable book.

A Family Up Against a Horrible Disease
Stephen Heywood was a carpenter, and a good one. His father was a director of an engineering lab, his mother a retired psychotherapist, one brother an aspiring Hollywood producer, and another brother an MIT graduate mechanical engineer. Stephen, therefore, was sort of a black sheep in a family of achievers. He had as a suitable project the restoration of a cottage in Palo Alto, where he was working in 1997. It was there that he put the key into a door, and it was stuck. He could not turn it, even though the lock was new, top-of-the-line, and previously working well. This simple problem puts into motion the events described in _His Brother's Keeper: A Story from the Edge of Medicine_ (Ecco) by Jonathan Weiner. Weiner has previously given wonderful accounts of current evaluations of the evolution of Darwin's finches and of the genetics of fruit flies, but here he has given a deeply human portrait of the effect of illness on one family. The problem is not the lock; Stephen dismantled it and it was in full working order. Then he discovered that he could turn the key if he used his other hand. The problem was within his own body.

It was Stephen's first signs of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often called Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS inactivates neurons which control the muscles. The muscles atrophy and eventually even those involved in breathing cannot function, so that the victim dies of suffocation. Death comes almost always within five years after the condition has been diagnosed, and most patients die within two years. Stephen's engineer brother, Jamie, had tackled many projects, many problems, and had overcome them all. Surely finding a cure for Stephen's condition was just one more problem, essentially an engineering problem. It didn't matter that he was a mechanical, not chemical or biochemical or genetic, engineer. Jamie immersed himself in ALS research, first on the Internet, of course, and then in the medical journals. He found that one factor getting the blame is the overproduction of the neurotransmitter glutamate, which kills off spinal nerves. He set up a foundation to power his efforts, and eventually a biotech company. He got contributions from his family, and his wife belly-danced to make money at benefit performances. The odds against success were overwhelming, while Stephen lost one function after another, providing the tension within the story.

It all should have turned out differently. It would be unfair to give away the specific ending of the book, but suffice it to say that Stephen at the end is heroically, calmly beating the odds in his own way, helped by a wife who is devoted to him and a family that cares for its lovable black sheep. He refuses to see himself as victim or hero, just prey to a "normal accident." He also does not mythologize Jamie's race for a cure, seeing it as a hunt for a "normal miracle." Jamie remains enthusiastic; it is clear that his own hubris in his project is only his individual partaking of the larger over-optimism of molecular medicine. The latter is obvious in the death of an eighteen-year-old in a clinical trial of gene therapy in 1999; as a result, the plans for gene therapy for Stephen had to be abandoned. Weiner himself shows that he has been disillusioned by medical hype. This is an often inspiring story of good intentions and hope, however; it isn't the fault of any of the people described herein, including the author, that hope is sometimes misplaced.

Total empowering
From start to finish it never lets go. You become so involved that to put it down is unjust. You become so involved with each person you feel you know them personelly and by the end you do. Jonathan Weiner takes you from brother's playful childhood to adult world where life is so very on the razers adge of medicine. A most read for those who care and an absolut for those who should. ... Read more

Book Description

A young girl is perched on the cold chrome of yet another doctor’s examining table, missing yet another day of school. Just twelve, she’s tall, skinny, and weak. It’s four o’clock, and she hasn’t been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the other hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggest open-heart surgery on her child to "get to the bottom of this." She checks her teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots the girl a warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans.

Sickened

From early childhood, Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed, medicated, and operated on—in the vain pursuit of an illness that was created in her mother’s mind. Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is the world’s most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse, in which the caretaker—almost always the mother—invents or induces symptoms in her child because she craves the attention of medical professionals. Many MBP children die, but Julie Gregory not only survived, she escaped the powerful orbit of her mother's madness and rebuilt her identity as a vibrant, healthy young woman.

Sickened is a remarkable memoir that speaks in an original and distinctive Midwestern voice, rising to indelible scenes in prose of scathing beauty and fierce humor. Punctuated with Julie's actual medical records, it re-creates the bizarre cocoon of her family's isolated double-wide trailer, their wild shopping sprees and gun-waving confrontations, the astonishing naïveté of medical professionals and social workers. It also exposes the twisted bonds of terror and love that roped Julie's family together—including the love that made a child willing to sacrifice herself to win her mother's happiness.

The realization that the sickness lay in her mother, not in herself, would not come to Julie until adulthood. But when it did, it would strike like lightning. Through her painful metamorphosis, she discovered the courage to save her own life—and, ultimately, the life of the girl her mother had found to replace her. Sickened takes us to new places in the human heart and spirit. It is an unforgettable story, unforgettably told. ... Read more

Reviews (55)

The Sickness Inside
This chilling story of a little girl who was abused by her mother brought me to frustrated tears. This book is not for the weak of heart, it is a cutting truth of child abuse and it will make you feel, strongly what this child felt. I was abused as a child and I can tell you I remember conversations from 25 years ago, verbatim. The man who left the bad review should have his account closed for abusing this service. He is obviously dealing with his own issues of being abused and knows only how to lash out when his pain is triggered. He obviously doesn't understand his own pain or has issues remembering it which has caused him to be completely ignorant to the reality of the manifestation of child abuse as an adult. I hope he finds some help for himself somewhere. I was brought back into the pain of my childhood reading this book and it took me days to sift through all the memories that overwhelmed me. I was inspired by the author's strength of character and truly heroic effort to face the pain inside of her. This book is wonderfully written and took me through every high and low, causing me to be sad, angry, frustrated and introspective but most of all she is an example to my own strength. Reading her book has led me to a new level of healing and I look forward to more books from this author in the future.

The Reality of Abuse
This book, wonderfully written, captivated my heart and troubled my soul. The author, Julie Gregory, pulled from her triumph the pain and suffering she experienced as a little girl at the hands of her mother and and exposed the reader to all the mind bending realities of an abused child in America. She brings the reader through many of the experiences and trials of her life and shows how this innocent little girl found beauty in the world that had given her only suffering. She takes us through her steps of being abused, then escaping that abuse and beginning the long search to find herself over many countries and many miles then eventually to the healing strength she so beautifully reveals. This book is awesome and has given me incredible insight into the strength bred of facing our deepest fears and pain. Julie Gregory has inspired me to overcome and prevail.

Impressive
Impressive This is an impressive,impressionable book that deals with a subject that for many had no idea ever existed. 'Munchausen by Proxy', a type of child abuse, as real as and as cruel as any child abuse I have ever read about. The book does well to make the reader understand what this author has lived through. It is courageous and inspirational like that of 'Nightmares Echo',with pieces of 'A child Called it', the devastational side of abuse written within it's pages. It ranks right up there with the two books mentioned and I consider it a must read book, and a well written memoir.

A Good Recommendation
A bravely told and fascinating to read story. Well written and easy to get caught up in, it compares well with "NIGHTMARES ECHO", "MY FRACTURED LIFE", "A CHILD CALLED IT", and "WHY I'M LIKE THIS."

Do not waste your time!
English is my second language, so forgive me my mistakes. First, this book is very boring. Ms.Gregory complaining all the time, but it seems to me that she had normal childhood. Of course, her mother was "out of mind" a lot of time, but she loved her daughter. There a lot of kids with much more abussive parents and more tragical stories.
Second, Ms.Gregory provides those medical charts,which impossible to read and understand. Why make this book even more boing? ... Read more

Book Description

Hope Donahue seemed to have it all: beauty, wealth, social status.She was an only childwho grew up with the best private schools, debutante balls, and a home in Hancock Park,Los Angeles’s old-money enclave. But beneath the family’s façade of "keeping upappearances," Hope hid a host of ugly truths, including a mother increasingly jealous ofher daughter’s good looks, an uncle’s sexual advances, and a father who cowed to thedemands of his wife and coolly reserved parents. Hope became addicted to a quest forphysical perfection in place of her self-esteem—and by the age of twenty-seven she hadundergone seven plastic surgeries.In riveting, unflinching prose, Hope recounts herdownward spiral that alienated her family and friends, and led her to theft, bankruptcy,and a sadistic relationship before she began her recovery.

A powerful response to a culture obsessed with extreme makeovers and risky proceduresthat promise flawlessness, Beautiful Stranger is a timely, cautionary tale. Herstory will inspire the countless women and men like her who struggle every day in aculture that feeds us dangerous images of unattainable perfection. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (17)

Into the Blue
Edsall's pilot-father suffers a stroke. Daughters, Susan and Sharon interrupt their busy lifestyles and fly into action with a plan to help their dad get back in the air. Through tears and laughter the whole family recovers and discovers treasures of life and living. Edsall is to be congratulated for her honesty and her family for its courage in allowing her to tell their story.

Get this for your Dad!
I stayed up until the wee hours finishing this wonderful book about the power of family and what human beings can do if they have the will and the courage. Edsall's endearingly quirky family -- no Leave it to Beaver perfection here -- finds itself challenged as never before when her father has a stroke. Instead of accepting the doctors' hopes that he'll, maybe, play cards one day, Susan and her sister Sharon decide that their pilot dad is going to fly an airplane before the year is out and, with no help from the medical establishment, design their own treatment program.Lots of tears and laughter. This is the best Father's Day present I can imagine -- get this book!

Exhilarating Read!
I loved this book! The writing is crisply brilliant and the story is hilarious and heart-warming. You feel as if you've known the author and her family all their lives by the end of the book, and you are glad about that.

What a great story!
Susan Edsall's account of how she and her sister created and provided an intensive post-stroke rehabilitation program for their father will inspire anyone who may face a seemingly impossible task. When it felt like their local hospital's rehab staff was consigning Mr. Edsall to a silent, shuffling world as a stroke victim, these two dynamos put their careers on hold to try to make good on a seemingly impossible promise: to help him reclaim his passion for flying by getting back his pilot's license. This challenge changed several people's lives, and Susan writes with honesty and clarity about the rewards of giving back to their father a fulfilling remainder of life.

A real-life hero`
Susan Edsall is a hero. When she finds herself in the unexpected crisis of her father's stroke, like a true hero, she responds immediately and instinctively with courage and perseverance to try to rescue another person from the abyss.
In this remarkable journey, told with wit and self-deprecation, she gains a closeness with her family that the rest of us can only wish for. The book is powerful, moving, irreverent, inspiring and beautifully written. I recommend it to anyone and everyone. ... Read more

Book Description

In 1966, Joan Gadsby's four-year-old son died of a brain tumour. In response, her trusted family physician prescribed a "chemical cocktail" of tranquilizers, sleeping pills and anti-depressants - an act that initiated Gadsby's slow descent into an abyss of unrecognized addiction.

Gadsby has emerged from her addiction to become a tireless advocate for systematic change and accountability in the area of prescribed sedative/hypnotic drugs. She has interviewed thousands - from consumers to doctors to pharmaceutical representatives and government officials as she conducted extensive international research - in her quest to expose the shocking truth of the depth and breadth of addiction by prescription which affects hundreds of thousands of men and women worldwide. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

This book has helped our family
This book had a profound affect on a loved one going through withdrawl, and a severe life crisis after 20 years of Benzo addiction. Over twenty years, regular physician prescribed this drug even the doctor didn't realize how severe the addition had become. We found Joan's book an accurate description of the severe life crisis that can happen after long term prescription to this class of medications. This book has helped our family and changed the course of our life. The book includes helpful information that can assist professionals - Doctors, lawyers in helping their clients who suffer from benzo addiction. This book has helped several members in our family understand the events that caused a loved one to "crash" to the lowest point in their life. Thank you Joan for writing this book and sharing your own crisis with us.

Somewhat syrupy, but a valuable resource nonetheless
With Winona Ryder, Rush Limbaugh, and Ozzy Osbourne making headlines for their addictions to prescription drugs, this book--published three years ago in Canada--is as timely as ever and serves as a reminder that legal drug addiction is a widespread problem. Likewise, those who read Andy Behrman's best-selling "Electroboy" might see his clinical diagnoses in a whole new light after reading "Addiction by Prescription."

All too often, patients place far too much trust in their overworked doctors, psychiatrists, and therapists; take tranquilizers, benzodiazepines, and other mind-altering substances for temporary emotional problems; and ultimately find themselves trapped in a cycle of habit and despair. To make matters worse, many doctors then diagnose their newly addicted patients with clinical psychiatric ailments and minimize or neglect the source of the trouble--the drugs themselves. And, since the 1950s, this problem has disproportionately plagued women, stereotypically regarded as prone to "hysteria" by their male doctors.

Joan Gadsby's book is both a memoir and a book of advocacy. On the latter score, it is a triumph: Gadsby has gathered a mountain of evidence regarding the careless dispensation of drugs, the shady marketing practices of pharmaceutical companies, the undeniable seriousness of the symptoms caused by prolonged use, and the dangers that confront patients who try to discontinue their prescriptions. In the past few years, Gadsby's goal--to publicize the dangers of these drugs--has been made much easier by an avalanche of media attention, but her book is still valuable as a one-stop resource for the layperson looking for information on the topic.

As autobiography, however, the book stumbles. There's no arguing with Gadsby's courage or with the misfortune she has endured, and her accounts of drug withdrawal and subsequent legal battles are riveting. Her writing is technically precise, but she's no memoirist. Far too often, her recollections read like excerpts from a resume: "I was responsible for managing multi-million dollar budgets and leases, and recommended, directed, and coordinated major capital repair and upgrading projects for many Crown-owned properties." "She later moved to the operational side of WCB as director of client services and was responsible for ten area offices throughout British Columbia, traveling extensively." And there's a certain cringe factor when one reads the treacly Rod McKuen-influenced poetry that adorned her refrigerator in times of need--and which she reprints in whole, with lines like "When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever" and "Love yourself first and most." (A few people in situations similar to Gadsby's might find such inspirational material worthwhile, but bad poetry is bad poetry, and there's little benefit for the rest of us.)

Fortunately, though, Gadsby sticks mostly to her main themes, and presents a compelling and irrefutable case for the dire situation created by these prescription drugs. Hers is a voice of sanity that should--and must--be heard in order to thwart this legally perpetuated epidemic.

Very Emotional!
In 1966, Joan Gadsby's four-year-old son died of a brain tumour and her trusted family doctor prescribed her a "chemical cocktail" of tranquillizers, sleeping pills and anti-depressants. Each time she visits her doctor, he gives her new prescriptions or tells her to increase her daily doseage. Soon, she sees her marriage slowly falling apart after she catches her husband with another woman. Again, her doctor adds on another prescription and sends her & her husband to a psychiatrist.

Soon enough, Joan is addicted to benzodiazepines. As a result of the drugs, she was arrested, sedated, jailed and was even told that she had a psychiatric disorder. In 1990, after an unintentional overdose that almost killed her, Joan had enough. Over a two year period, Joan slowly stopped taking the pills and survived to tell her story. This is a real eye opener for anyone who is currently on anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medications. It's 2003 and I have yet to hear from a doctor that the pills they prescribe to me are addicting. I had to find out on my own.. just like Joan. ... Read more

Book Description

Routledge Critical Thinkers is a new series for anyone needing an acessible introduction to the key figures in contemporary critical thought.The books provide crucial orientation for further study and equip readers to engage with each theorist's original texts.
In Sigmund Freud, his key ideas are discussed as well as the intellectual, social and historical contexts in which they were first presented.The book answers the questions: Why is Freud important? What motivated and influenced him? And who did Freud influence? Sigmund Freud is a comprehensive and important introduction to a complex thinker. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Analysing Freud...
Pamela Thurschwell's text on Sigmund Freud is part of a recent series put out by the Routledge Press, designed under the general editorial direction of Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway, University of London), to explore the most recent and exciting ideas in intellectual development during the past century or so. To this end, figures such as Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Ricoeur, and other influential thinkers in critical thought are highlighted in the series, planned to include at least 21 volumes in all.

Thurschwell's text, following the pattern of the others, includes background information on Freud and its significance, the key ideas and sources, and Freud's continuing impact on other thinkers. As the series preface indicates, no critical thinker arises in a vacuum, so the context, influences and broader cultural environment are all important as a part of the study, something with which Freud might agree.

Why is Freud included in this series? It is hard to come up with a more controversial and influential thinker in the twentieth century than Sigmund Freud. His name has become a household word by those who know absolute nothing about him or his real work. While starting out in the then newly-developed field of psychology as a primary focus, his thought and intellectual influence has extended far beyond to almost every academic field. Particularly in the areas of philosophy, politics, theology, sociology, and science, Freud's influence will continue to be significant for a number of reasons.

Thurschwell's text is well organised. In the first chapter, she recounts both a brief biographical sketch of Freud, as well as the discussion on how Freud's development of psychoanalytic ideas and processes impacted the intellectual development of the early twentieth century. It is important to know which time-period of Freud his works were produced - a career in such a new field that extended for such a length of time means that Freud's ideas not only developed rapidly, but sometimes came to contradict each other. Thurschwell sees this kind of development as a strength rather than a weakness, but it does call for increased care on the part of scholars and other interpreters, to be careful about just how much authority to lend to any particular work or idea.

One of the useful features of the text is the side-bar boxes inserted at various points. For example, during the discussion on Freud's development of sexuality (obviously a major theme in Freud from the start), there are brief discussions, set apart from the primary strand of the text, on the Super-Ego, Perversion, the Castration Complex, and Ambivalence, developing further these ideas should the reader not be familiar with them, or at least not in the way with which Freud would be working with ideas derived from them. Each section on a key idea spans twenty to thirty pages, with a two-page summary concluding each, which gives a recap of the ideas (and provides a handy reference).

The book is designed so that each chapter can be a stand-alone essay, peripherally related to each other, but not dependent upon any particular order of reading. Should the reader want a quick introduction to Freud's development on society and religion, or an overview of Freud's case histories, those can be read independently or out of sequence without any loss of accessibility by the reader. Should this text be used as part of a class, the chapters can be rearranged to suit any number of syllabi patterns.

Part of the problem of putting Freud into a series like this is that the series requires the identification of key ideas. Thurschwell develops six key areas (as opposed to ideas). The first of these are Freud's early theories on hysteria, hynosis, cathartic methods, repression, fantasy, and free association. Next comes a discussion on dream and thought interpretation. Freud's ideas on sexuality occurs next, followed by an examination of some of the case studies conducted by Freud. These are generally accessible and fascinating, not the least of which reason comes from the work with and explorations of therapeutic relationship which, if occurring today, would be at least a breach of professional ethics, and at worst legally actionable! The final two subjects include Freud's mind-mapping ideas, and his ideas for the development of society and religion.

The concluding chapter, After Freud, highlights some key areas of development in relation to other thinkers, as well as points of possible exploration for the reader. Freud's thought vis-à-vis modern ideas such as feminism, film theory, art and literary criticism, and the dialectic process of going out of fashion and coming back into vogue make his ideas as they apply to the continuing development of philosophical and intellectual history, particularly in the areas of art and literature, a relevant if controversial segment in intellectual development.

As do the other volumes in this series, Thurschwell concludes with an annotated bibliography of works by Freud, works on Freud, further readings on psychoanalytic theory and practice, and some internet resources.

While this series focuses intentionally upon literary theory, in fact this is only the starting point. For Freud (as for others in this series) the expanse is far too broad to be drawn into such narrow guidelines, and the important and impact of the ideas extends out into the whole range of intellectual development. As intellectual endeavours of every sort depend upon language, understanding, and interpretation, the thorough comprehension of how and why we know what we know is crucial. ... Read more

Book Description

This is a nurse's story unlike any other, because Echo Heron is a very special nurse.Dedicated to healing and helping in the harshest environments, she spent ten years in emergency rooms and intensive care units.Her story is unique, penetrating, and unforgettable.Her story is real.

"Compelling reading."

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

... Read more

Reviews (16)

Superb reading for anyone with a heart
A friend of mine had told me about Echo Heron, so I decided to pick up 'Intensive Care'. Am I glad I did! As a pre-nursing student, I love to soak up anything about Nursing and Healthcare in general so I excited about this book. This book exceeded my expecations by far. The earthiness and Echo's witty and sharp humor make this book a very satisfying book to read. I even had a family member read this book and they loved it just I like did. It doesn't matter if you are involved in healthcare or not, you will be touched immensely by this publication.

Intensive Care: The Story of a Nurse
This book is true life. I have been a nurse for many years and have seen so many of the same things. It touched my heart and warmed my soul. Reminded me of myself and why I became a nurse! A must read for all nurses new and seasoned!!

A great read
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in entering a medical profession. This book will give the reader an intimate view into the reality of working in a hospital where life and death decisions are made. I'm in nursing school, and reading this book has affirmed my decision to become a nurse.

Her style is a bit melodramatic, and she does tend to romanticize certain events. Such as the boy who comes in to say good-bye to his grandfather--she describes how much he looked up to him, etc, when in reality she knows nothing of their relationship, or even what the man was like in life. But it's easy to overlook these (if you want!), because the meat of the book is about what it's like to take care of people in crisis. I look forward to reading more of her books.

I couldnt help, but had to put it down
It seems to be a book for nurses, but definitely not for laypeople or doctors. I have worked on an ICU and I found the book
- stilistically badly written,
- way too long,
- more an information textbook mated with a school-girl-diary than a good novel!

I cannot recommend it at all. Save your time and don't buy it.(except you're a nurse and might recognize yourself in the story).

Read House of God instead, it's brilliant!

What a great book!
I read this book while in nursing school, and I just loved it. I am out of school now, and I see the things that Echo describes in her book on a daily basis. Just great! I recommend it to everyone, not just nurses! ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Notes from a veteran doctor's perspective, excellent writing
Having read Doctor's stories first, I was prepared for Richard Selzer's excellent writing. This book must be the origin of some of the stories that wound up in Doctor Stories (Imelda, Impostor, Chatterbox)

MOSTLY THE LIFE OF A DOCTOR IN PRACTICE OF SURGERY (70% OF BOOK)
Unlike Doctor Stories which have a wider range of stories, this book except for a couple of sidelines is about the craft of the Doctor, in and out of the Operating room and Hospital. Also, the doctor's perspective on the outside world. However, I wonder how many other doctors have his sense of service. Some of us can't imagine a high-priced surgeon performing the service he does in "Toe nails" one of the stories within.

DETAILS AND THE EMOTIONS AROUND THEM, FILL THIS BOOK:
Richard Selzer writing is poetic in his description of a doctor's musings on the Art of Surgery, the halls of the hospitals and the feel of working inside the human body. In many sense his reflections on his relationships with the tools he uses could the same a mechanic, a draftsman (of the 50s-80s), or the artist feels about the tools they use to perform their craft.

POETIC DETAILS ON EVEN THE MOST ORDINARY SITUATION:
He finds beauty in the minute details of life and has the gift to write about them. I also have his book "Mortal Lessons" that I hope to read soon as well. His books are addicting in the sense that you too also begin, if you don't already, to see the details of your own work and the relationships you have with the world around you. Either I think similarly or his thought process is universal, but he captures the magic of living and the impressions we all have at time. Even if you are not a doctor (and I'm not), you will find a sense of familiarity in his writing.

MEDICINE MAY BE WHAT HAS FINE-TUNED HIS SENSES:
Medicine however, has a draw that few other crafts do. It is the mystery of our own plumbing. It also has the human element of relationships and drama within it as well. The author does well to capture the patient's relationship with the physician. Richard Selzer does well to capture the detached relationship; a physician has with the body but not the soul of the patients, he treats. When he acknowledges the person within the body the relationship broadens and he as a physician has opened himself up to the pain as well. He does this from time to time.

ZEN-LIKE IN THOUGHT:
I found this book very Zen-like in its concentration of detail. If Richard Selzer decides to write a book like "Sweeping Changes" a book on Zen philosophy on cleaning, but except on the art of living, he would be well-qualified. He makes holy what many take to be ordinary. Bravo.

Good but not great. Score: 7
Under the old Amazon.com ranking system, I would give this book a seven on a ten point scale. As a fellow surgeon who enjoys Selzer's writings, I thought this was a good, yet not great collection of ruminations. Some of the chapters were quite touching, some were funny, and some were quite plain. A few actually suffered from Selzer's exuberant imagination as he tried to stuff meaning and metaphor into patients' stories that didn't fit. Taking it all together, I'm glad I bought it, but I liked his book Mortal Lessons much better.

For anyone in the human 'helps' professions
This book delivers a knockout punch of genuine compassion. Teachers, ministers, politicians; even peace officers can find value in these writings. Doctors are not healers, but servants. Dr. Selzer knew the meaning of humility.

Selzer prepares medical hopefuls for the art of surgery.
Richard Selzer prepares those with an interest in surgery, specifically medical hopefuls, for the science of medicine through personal experiences that are shared with the reader in Letters to a Young Doctor. He shows that surgery, or being a doctor on a whole can have its days of redemption and it's times of tragedy. Selzer uses emotions to create an emotional bond between the reader, the writer, and the patients. Personal testimony of specific examples, tied in with metaphors, comparisons, and imagery, prepare the reader for what he/she must face in the future as a particepent in the field of medicine. The book is organized into 23 different stories and experiences used by Selzer to prepare medical students with what they will encounter as doctors/surgeons. This also includes 5 letters written specifically to the students of surgery in first person viewpoint. These divided sections of the book hold the same ideas, but are presented in different a manner each. One part might discuss the impact being a doctor may have on society. Another might focus on the aspects in specific, such as the respect one must hold for the tools used in surgery. But all these parts create a whole idea, that being a doctor has its success by in accompanied by the horrors. And this prepares medical students for the life of a surgeon. That is the beauty of Selzer's work. In preparing the young medical world for the future of which they wish to experience as doctors, Richard Selzer pushes the dismay and prosperity of surgery and being a doctor, a healer, into the light. He shares through personal experiences the emotions felt day to day. Selzer uses comparisons to support the specific examples and imagery to support the comparisons. He is thorough in his work and leaves an impression on his audience, the medical hopefuls of the world. The impact he has creates an effect that, in turn, touches everyone.

A must for future doctors and people interested in medicine
Selzer is an amazing writer. His style and flow of language took a little getting used to as first, but once the reader is acquainted with his writing style, the book literally sucks your mind in. I could not put it down. Selzer is honest and very frank about the practice of surgery. His book exemplifies the pride, the sensitivity, and the directness of surgeons. Here, surgeons are human beings, not merely fixing machines. I will always view surgeons in a different light after reading this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Nestled in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, the town of Johnson City saw its first AIDS patient in August 1985. Working in Johnson City was Abraham Verghese, a young Indian doctor specializing in infectious diseases who became, by necessity, the local AIDS expert. Out of his experience comes a startling, ultimately uplifting portrait of the American heartland. ... Read more

Reviews (45)

A gem of a book! Honest, heart-warming, elegantly written.
This is one of the best books I've read from a contemporary author. Verghese writes elegantly and with searing honesty about the AIDS patients he encountered as a young immigrant in small town America. So much has been written about his wonderful writing style and his compassion and humanity as a doctor...and I agree with all of that. I was especially interested in how he describes the gay experience as being analagous to the foreign immigrant experience in America. Both groups gain sustenance from their communities; both groups long for acceptance from the mainstream. It's interesting that the author's desire for assimilation is greater than his need to identify with the local Indian community. This book succeeds on every level. You gain insights into the life of the gay community, Indian immigrants, the medical community, and most of all the emotional and mental state of the man who describes it all. Thank you Doctor Verghese for this great book!

Physician & Philosopher, Dr. V. illumines Aides' human face
Having read Dr. Verghese's Tennis Partner first, I wanted to read his first book as well. And then I wanted to read another book with his signature of insight, tenderheartedness, depth of understanding in the practice of medicine. There was no other to be found. What he is able to do in this human history of the appearance of Aides in a rural city, far from the places where Aides originally tallied high mortality rates, is to make you look again at who has the disease, what toll is takes on those who love them, and the very particular social structure in which they find themselves. He tells us, as well, about the culture of the hospital in its attitude toward the patients and he the physician in his treatment of the increasing numbers who seek his care--healing he cannot bring, but care in abundance. Best of all, he shares himself with us--as he did in the Tennis Partner. To expose oneself this way takes great courage. And that is what I like best about Dr. Verghese--his courage. Please continue to write, Dr. V., about the things which matter most. Thank you.

Almost too long to be effective.
My Own Country is a tough book to read. There are so many stories of people struggling to live in the early years before there were any treatments to make living with HIV at all possible. There's also the growing despair of the author as he sees the disease spreading through his rural town and of course across the globe and not having anything he can do beyond diagnosing the disease and treating the opportunistic diseases that attack his patients.

By about page 250 I began to grow numb from the overload off all the personal stories. The book as well begins to ramble a bit but I can fully understand why Dr. Verghese chose to leave for a less stressful job.

My Own Country, my home town.
This book is an amazing way to discover the hardships that those must over come who are diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. I am from Johnson City, TN. As a part of a clinical I was doing in high school we were given many options of books to read for a grade, this was one. I was drawn to it because hey, this was my home town. But what I got from this book overcame everything I had expected.

I wept reading this book. It is amazing how you get to know Dr. Verghese and his patients. You, in a way, experience their hardships and triumps, even the families loss. He explains word for word the exhausting battle of finding out and forming a plan of action. He puts you into the realization of these individuals and what they felt. You begin to morn their loosing battles and celebrate in their strength in recovery.

He discribes this area of Tennessee with such effortless ease. It's beauty struck with something so horrid. Reading the book I forgot that this was my home, the people in it were people of my town. For a nieve high school student it made me realize that no matter what the year was this was real and it was here in my own back yard. "My Own Country."

I learned more than just about the people or about the land but the medical terminology was explained and he made you the reader understand what it meant to him and the world of medicine. Each detail will make you feel like you are right there in the ER of the "Miracle Center".

There were times I just could not put this book down. I have read it three times now and I am starting my fourth. The stories in this book of the patients are tragic. Anyone who has any type of preconceived notion of what it is like to have AIDS/HIV or what "kind of people" have AIDS/HIV should read this book. It will open your eyes to a whole new world.

This story of our small town, as it was then, has reached all over the world. It has inspired and educated everyone who has read it. I'm sure that it still means a great deal to the families of those in it.

AIDS will always be scary, it will always be something that will cause pain and horror to our ears, this book describes a small town with prejudice of it's own before a time of AIDS and how it conforms to another way of thinking. Just like in this book, not everyone will ever be accepting of those who contract this disease but everyone will be made aware of it.

I suggest this book to any reader with any reading taste. You will walk away with much more than what you came with. You will get to know our people and their stories from the mind of a man who knew them all. Abraham Verghese was brilliant in writing this collection of lives on paper. Thank you Dr. Verghese for letting their voices be heard all over the world and inspiring those who take time to indulge in your brilliance.

Killing AIDS prejudice
I read this book when it first came out, and I even was lucky enough to attend a reading by the author in a rural bookstore of North Carolina, which was a perfect setting for a reading from a book whose locale is the rural areas East of North Carolina. I even had the book signed, the things you do sometimes...

It is a truly beautiful book. If not great litterature, it is certainly a well written memoir that reads like a novel. But it is not fiction. One sees the progressive changes in the mood of the Doctor as his sense of duty slowly but surely affect his work and his family life.

But most important of all, if this book does not cure you from AIDS prejudice, nothing will. ... Read more

Book Description

William Osler was born in a parsonage in backwoods Canada on July 12, 1849.In a life lasting seventy years, he practiced, taught, and wrote about medicine at Canada's McGill University, America's Johns Hopkins University, and finally as Regius Professor at Oxford. At the time of his death in England in 1919, many considered him to be the greatest doctor in the world.

Osler, who was a brilliant, innovative teacher and a scholar of the natural history of disease, revolutionized the art of practicing medicine at the bedside of his patients.He was idolized by two generations of medical students and practitioners for whom he came to personify the ideal doctor.But much more than a physician, Osler was a supremely intelligent humanist.In both his writings and his personal life, and through the prism of the tragedy of the Great War, he embodied the art of living.It was perhaps his legendary compassion that elevated his healing talents to an art form and attracted to his private practice students, colleagues, poets (Walt Whitman for example) politicians, royalty, and nameless ordinary people with extraordinary conditions.

William Osler's life lucidly illuminates the times in which he lived.Indeed, this is a book not only about the evolution of modern medicine, the training of doctors, holism in medical thought, and the doctor-patient relationship, but also about humanism, Victorianism, the Great War, and much else. Meticulously researched, drawing on many new sources and offering new interpretations, William Osler: A Life in Medicine brings to life both a fascinating man and the formative age of twentieth-century medicine.It is a classic biography of a classic life, both authoritative and highly readable. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

A Real Eminent Victorian
William Osler remains an iconic figure in American medicine. Osler is taken often to epitomize the physician who brings a crticial and scholarly approach to the bedside in conjunction with compassion and empathy. In this very well written biography, Bliss traces Osler's life, his achievements, and examines how he assumed iconic status and whether or not this status is deserved. Bliss is particularly well equipped to undertake this task. A well known specialist on Canadian history, he has written other fine books on medical history in a Canadian context.
Bliss presents Osler as a product of the rising British Victorian middle classes. The remarkable son of impressive parents, Osler was the son of an English naval officer turned Anglican minister and his equally intelligent wife. Raised in rural Ontario when this part of Canada was still a frontier, Osler's parents inculcated respect for learning, dedication to hard work, and clearly taught the value of community service. William Osler was not an outlier in this family. One of his brothers became a prominent businessman and two other brothers became important figures in Canadian law and politics. An early interest in natural history (biology) lead Osler to medicine. Trained in then provinicial Toronto and Montreal, he finished his education in some of the great teaching hospitals of Europe. Spotted by his mentors in Montreal as a future star, he was brought back to McGill to teach at the modest medical school. At McGill, Osler launched the career of careful clinical observation, pathologic correlation, and teaching that would propel him to the apex of his profession. His growing reputation led to appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and then to the nascent Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. At Hopkins, he became the first Professor of Clinical Medicine and introduced the teaching methods that revolutionized medical education in the USA. Relatively little of what Osler did was truly novel. Clinico-pathologic correlation has been standard method for expanding medical knowledge for decades and the clerkship method of teaching had been used in Britain and continental Europe for some time. Osler carried these methods to new heights. In his clinical practice, in his teaching, and in his great textbooks, Osler summarized and codified almost all of 19th century medicine. He was not a notable scientist, though his description and characterization of several important clinical conditions was very valuable, but he brought the best science of his time to the bedside and set clinical medicine on the course of drawing from systematic scientific work. In terms of his personal accomplishments and the example he set for his numerous trainees, his impact on 20th century medicine was immense.
Osler's reputation as a fine physician was deserved. Bliss shows him to be an warm and compassionate individual who was regarded often with great affection by his patients. Blessed with a generous and kindly personality, he enjoyed a wide circle of friends and a happy family life. In important respects, Osler exemplifies some of the most important and most admirable features of the Victorian period. His sense of virtue and service was very strong but he was not a prig and had relatively liberal values. Traveling in Germany towards the end of the 19th century, he noted and deplored rising anti-Semitism. He appears to have been devoid of overt anti-Semitic feelings and had a number of Jewish trainess, all of whom he appears to have treated with his usual combination of high expectations and civil behavior. Alone among the faculty at Hopkins, he supported the admission of women, though he did not really believe in female equality. Bliss spent years immersed in Osler's extensive writings and tremendously extensive correspondence, clearly likes and admires Osler, and his regard for Osler is reflected in the tone of this biography.

Osler was also that quintessential Canadian, the provincial boy who achieves fame on the wider stage of the USA or Britain. At the peak of his fame, he was the best known physician in the English speaking world and something of a minor celebrity.
Like all fine biographies, this book is about more than its central subject. It is valuable on the development of Canadian society, the growth of universities in the USA and Canada, the history of medicine, and the devastating impact of WWI.
This will be the standard biography of Osler and it is worthy of its subject.

the good doctor
This is, quite honestly, a hefty tome, but no less may be expected when writing about the greatest American physician who ever lived. Bliss presents us with a detailed, well-paced, and engaging biography of Dr. Osler, from his childhood days in Canada to his final years at Oxford. Being both a student of medicine and a Baltimorean (currently), I took a special interest to the chapters devoted to his post as the first chief of medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Unlike the time-honored work by Cushing, Bliss's book is no hagiography; it makes no false overtures about Dr. Osler's iconic grandeur, instead letting the reader discover for himself (or herself) that Dr. Osler was, in fact, as great a man as people say he was. (All that being said, I still value the two-volume Cushing biography, and there is no way I will rid myself of the precious first-edition set I snatched up last year at the Maryland Historical Society bookshop!)

One need not practice Oslerolatry (that is, the veritable worship of Dr. Osler expressed by many of the older faculty at Hopkins and elsewhere) to appreciate this book, though having an interest in medicine and/or medical history may help. Critics often lament that American doctors no longer have any professional integrity, and that taking the Hippocratic Oath is a sham. Read this book, and discover how great the American physician can be...and THEN lament that they don't make them like they used to.

Absolutely delightful!
Any attempt to describe the life of such an illustrious personage, as one could imagine must be a rather daunting task. However, Michael Bliss's smooth-flowing rendering of Dr. William Osler's life is made not only manageable, but a sheer joy to read.

Of course this book will be compared with the innumerable number of other writings about William Osler, most notably of course the Cushing version. And Bliss clearly acknowledges the plethora of carefully collected documentations and personal correspondences that Cushing had accumulated in crafting his tale. However, I think this book stands on its own as a unique rendering of Osler mainly because of one simple fact. Bliss has had the luxury of time on his side to not just document the time and lives and the state of Medicine in the late 19th century, but most importantly, he relates it to the current, modern day state of affairs in those areas as well. He has woven a story that encompasses through the life of the great Osler, the tremendous influences of 19th medicine on modern day medicine. Even if one is not in the health-related professions or the biomedical sciences, one cannot miss the fact that this is a book as much about humanism as it is about medicine.

Biography, like history is riddled with biases, especially if it is about people and events that have revolutionazied mankind. This is particularly so in regards to William Osler, whose life and work have been immortalized, and a man who had acheived a legendary status even during his own life time. Bliss's work is as unbiased as it could possibly be given the already intrinsic biases about his subject. In this sense, this book is also unique from the previous biographies of Osler.

Overall, this is a most enjoyable read. This is definitely a "page-flipper" that takes you into the life, struggles, and triumps not only of Osler, but in a sense, of the entire human race.

A Wonderful Book!
I was not an unbiased reader when I picked this up -a graduating medical student about to begin a medical residency. There is a minimum of technical medicine in this biography -it reads more like a novel, filled with Osler's own writing. Bliss poured through his technical papers, his speaches, letters and medical jokes (published under the pseudoname Eagerton Y Davis) and gives us a taste of what an incredible man he must have been. Full of energy, a mind constantly at work, yet a tender-hearted soul who was a pioneer in the art of medicine, of making the doctor-patient relationship warm and empathetic in an era when this was unpopular. Bliss reveals that this is a person we should remember and who's example we all should take to heart: diligent work, a positive attitude, and concern for humanity made manifest each day in one's daily living. Read this book!

Wonderful book!
Though I've never personally had much of an interest in the history of medicine, I found this book very enjoyable and inspirational. I think all physicians will similarly feel inspired, as Osler was a shining example of what good bedside manner can accomplish in an age where medicine was relatively impotent, and beyond that, he was also a shining example of a brilliant, decent and caring human being. A wonderful book, beautifully written...I couldn't put it down, and I hope you will have the same trouble! Paul Dash MD ... Read more

Book Description

Three days after terrorists slammed airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, David Horowitz, as disoriented as the rest of us by these cataclysmic events, discovered that he had prostate cancer. As America declared war on terror, Horowitz began treatment, emerging months later with a "reprieve" from his disease.He brought back with him this remarkable book of hard-won insights about our country and ourselves--how we get to our ends and what we learn along the way.

An at times heart-catching departure from the polemics and social criticism that have made Horowitz one of our most controversial public intellectuals, THE END OF TIME is a lyrical meditation on subjects ranging from what parents inadvertently teach us in their deaths, to the forbidding realities of the cancer ward, to the way in which figures like Mohammed Atta use death as a strategy in becoming gods of their own mad creation. Hovering protectively over these ruminations is Horowitz's wife, April, whose stubborn love reached into the heart of his medical darkness and led him back toward the light of this work.

If THE END OF TIME is about how the commitments we make in this life steer us toward our fate, it is also about the redemptive power of language and literature. One of the writers who helped Horowitz make sense of what had happened to him and what was happening around him was the 17th century Catholic philosopher and scientist Blaise Pascal, whose PENSEES functions here as a model and guide. THE END OF TIME resembles the PENSEES in its striking combination of sense and sensibility, and in the way that its unflinching search for the truth is elevated by one stunning epiphany after another.Citing Pascal's famous observation that "the heart has its reasons which reason does not know," Horowitz concludes his journey by saying: "I do not have the faith of Pascal, but I know its feeling…. I will be unafraid when death comes. I will feel my way toward the horizon in front of me, and my heart will take me home." ... Read more

Reviews (6)

A book about a physical and spiritual journey.
In this book, Ehrlich uses many different techniques that all work together to make a good book. Basic ground rules of writing command us to ?show, don't tell? and keep the reader as involved as possible in the story. In general, Ehrlich uses special techniques where the story of her journey might become too abstract, too metaphysical, or too obtuse, or too personal to sustain us as readers. Here are a few techniques I found interesting.

If I understand Ehrlich's intent, this is a book about a journey. But the journey isn't just a physical journey (Wyoming to California to North Carolina to California then back to Wyoming), it's also a spiritual, religious and emotional journey. In this sense then, this is partly a book about ideas.

Interestingly, Ehrlich does not begin the book with a big set of ideas. She begins in the present tense, a voice and tense of intimacy and immediacy. She places us at the beginning in a dream or a dreamstate she experienced at the moment of the lightning strike. It seems to me, this sets Ehrlich up nicely to deal with the potential problems of a ?talky, head-game? narrative. My guess is she knows she's got a long journey ahead of her, filled with speculation, thoughts, feelings, readings, science facts, and what not, so she looks for devices to keep the narrative grounded and interesting. Her first technique is the present tense opening. Another technique she uses is to concentrate her details o