Book Description

In Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance, John Riddle showed, through extraordinary scholarly sleuthing, that women from ancient Egyptian times to the fifteenth century had relied on an extensive pharmacopoeia of herbal abortifacients and contraceptives to regulate fertility. In Eve's Herbs, Riddle explores a new question: If women once had access to effective means of birth control, why was this knowledge lost to them in modern times? ... Read more

Reviews (4)

It's good, but not...
If you are looking for do-it-yourself abortion information like I was, this is not a good book for that. It is a history book. It's good, but not an abortionary (abortion dictionary).

A work of history which also excels as an herbal
As a person who enjoys the study of social history (how people lived) and herbal medicine, this book exceeded my expectations on both counts.

Riddle is an historian, so the scholarship in the book is historical scholarship. He moves deftly between conflicting theories of demographics and actual family sizes, at home with his contemporaries and able to argue his somewhat novel opinion on a level playing field. Not surprisingly, historians tend to go along with modern medical thought that there were no effective systems of personal or professional health care prior to our own allopathic tradition in the past few centuries. Herbalists, homeopaths and the like are still fighting for legitimacy against exactly this mindset.

What surprised and delighted me was the thoroughness of Riddle's information on the herbs in question. It must be noted that he does NOT provide recipes for readers to use at home. He isn't playing (herbal) doctor. Regardless, a person with some experience in herbalism or access to alternate texts can easily take the list of herbs from this book and find appropriate dosage and other how to information from that other source--including the important caveat that herbs are not always safe and shouldn't be taken without professional advice or lots of research. Riddle's emphasis is on pointing out which plants have been indicated, by whom in the ancient world, and what science has (or has not) done to test for actual efficacy.

One interesting side note for readers who allow for the possible effectiveness of today's most revolutionary complementary medicine modalities is Riddle's reporting of the fact that, historically, chants (magic) were often listed together with the herbs (medicine) in any given herbal recipe. Riddle is careful and respectful of the potential for narrow-mindedness when he admits that, to our Western minds, there can be no believing in the usefulness of the magic side of the equation, but he makes no disparaging remarks and he allows for future scientific work to prove said "magic" effective. Of course, to a modern practitioner of Reiki or any other mental/spiritual healing system, it is certainly possible to suppose the intent of the healer and/or patient was a necessary or beneficent part of the ancient cures.

I expected to enjoy this book's subject matter, but I was actually delighted by how well Mr. Riddle covered both aspects of the topic, and even more so by the easy readability of his style. Any person who enjoys reading well-written history for pleasure will find this a work worth spending some time with.

awesome
The best book out there thus far on herbal contraception and abortion.

Brave scholarship upon the "secret knowledge" of women.
An outstanding work of scholarship. Riddle has gathered buried historical evidence of reproductive control through the ages. A must read for those who feel that we live in the most "enlightened" age, in regards to reproduction. Riddle will prove you wrong. Women have been in control of their reproduction for centuries. Readily available herbs have been more effective than "modern science" throughout society. ... Read more

Book Description

Advance Praise for MEDICAL FIRSTS

"Medical Firsts is a great introduction to some of the high points in the history of medicine–– clear, accessible writing, factual, and so up-to-date that some sections contain this season’s cutting-edge science. This is a terrific book."
–– Robert Sapolsky, professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, and author of A Primate’s Memoir: A Neuroscientist’s Unconventional Life Among the Baboons

"An exhilarating grand tour of medicine’s major milestones.Robert Adler’s impressively researched and highly entertaining book is a fitting tribute to the men and women whose triumphant legacy has been the amelioration of human pain and suffering."
–– Marcus Chown, author of The Universe Next Door

"Medical Firsts compellingly shows that the heroic battle against disease is one of the greatest endeavors in human history."
–– Victor McElheny, author of Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution

"An elegantly written account of the history of medicine from the era of the ancient Greeks to the present day, with superb chapters on landmark figures like Sigmund Freud, Louis Pasteur, and Margaret Sanger.Both the fit and not so fit among us will find Adler’s book about health and disease enlightening and entertaining. It’s just what the doctor ordered."
–– Jonah Raskin, author of For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman

"Medical Firsts is a fast-paced, thrilling journey through the medical breakthroughs of the last three millennia. Superbly written, entertaining, and poignant . . . Medical Firsts beautifully captures the thrills of medical discovery."
–– Paul Thompson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine & Brain Research Institute

"Medical Firsts is thoroughly researched, delightfully illustrated, and a joy to read from cover to cover or chapter by chapter.One is continually drawn along as Adler reveals myriad medical mysteries by describing the scientists, the life and times during which they work, and the frustrations and rejections they experience in their quests for medical knowledge and discovery.This is a book for everyone to enjoy, whatever their interests."
–– Barbara B. Frank, M.D., FACG, Professor of Medicine, Drexel University College of Medicine ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Don't be afraid!!!
As a lay person, I cautiously picked up Medical Firsts thinking I wouldn't understand a word. Surprise, surprise. I not only understood, but was blown away by what I didn't know. Adler made the lives and works of medical pioneers who laid the ground work for what we all take for granted come alive for me. Since I've actively repelled anything remotely connected to science all my life, almost every page had a "wow" factor.

The short chapters made it a lot more readable for me as a science challenged reader. With so much new info, I was grateful to pause after each one to appreciate the enormity of the discovery. I developed a reverence and gratituide to those who overcame enormous social barriers and fought, amazingly, the same hurdles that impede progress today - fear of change, fear of the unknown.

Thanks to Adler, I just might tiptoe back into new bookstore aisles. Carol Wiseman, author of A Patchwork of Comforts: Small Pleasures for Peace of Mind

Adler's Second Book on Firsts!
Medical Firsts is a well written, interesting, and informative account of preeminent medical achievements over the past 2500 years. It is well worth reading whether you are a medical professional or simply have a curious mind. Robert Adler's style of writing is easy to follow, entertaining, and intelligent. This book is organized into twenty-eight bite-sized chapters, each of which is thoroughly researched and very fascinating on its own. After reading Robert Adler's first great book, Science Firsts, I had very high expectations. I was certainly not disappointed and you won't be either. I highly recommend this book.

Amazing and fascinating stories of how healthcare developed
Any health care consumer -- or provider -- should be fascinated by these stories of how the health care we know to day came to be. It was amazing to me to read how much the ancients knew about the human body, and how accurately, and then how "medicine" descended into the miasma of the Middle Ages for over a thousand years before painstakingly, and with great difficulty, enduring personal animosity, crawling back to what the ancients knew, and beyond to what medical science knows today.

All related in well-told stories about real people, described warts and all. Some of those people I had never heard about before but even the others of whom I had read elsewhere came alive as people, with new information and more background.

I heartily recommend this book for anyone with an interest in healthcare, or in history. Not only informative, but very enjoyable reading.

Serendipitous
It is great to have stories about medicine that I wouldn't have known even if I had stayed awake in all those pre-med courses. I enjoyed this book so much I had to give it away to an internist who found he could learn something new as well.

A great subject and a terrific read.
I picked up Medical Firsts by Robert Adler on the strength of his previous book, Science Firsts--and I am definitely glad I did. Adler describes, in just the right amount of detail, the breakthroughs made throughout the history of Western medicine. Adler's subjects range from famous figures--Freud, Galen, Pasteur--to lesser-known revolutionaries like Varro and Ibn al-Nafis (who, to be honest, I'd never heard of). The chapter on the invention of anesthesia in particular really grabbed me--with our modern hospitals and painless procedures, it's easy to forget how important the discovery of ether was to modern medicine. (Oh, and not to forget the x-ray and the Pill!) Definitely a good read--highly recommended... ... Read more

Book Description

Molecular biology has come to dominate our perceptions of life, health and disease. In the decades following World War II, the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge was a world-renowned center of this emerging discipline. Crick and Watson, among others, did the work that made them famous in this laboratory. Soraya de Chadarevian's important new study is the first to examine the creation and expansion of molecular biology and its place on the postwar governmental agenda through the prism of this remarkable institution. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (12)

excellent account of human experimentation
What struck me as I was reading this book was the fact that human experimentation, as gruesome as it was in the past, may still be going on without our even knowing it. The author does a good job of telling us about things we probably never heard of, but an even better job of telling us what we may expect in the future. I found the chapters on ethnic weapons and future medical research especially good. If you believe this kind of thing is in our past and can't happen again, think again. Since 9/11, the government is racing to find defenses against bio and chemical weapons, and human experiments will once again be needed in the name of "national security." This is an excellent read. Scary stuff, but the appendices and references tell it all.

Disturbing but excellent
A lot of readers may find this book disturbing. Some may find it unbelievable. Critics, especially those who believe that governments don't do things like this, might take issue with the author's style, which is basically to expose horror after horror and lay open the reality of human experimentation as it has been practiced and is still being practiced today. For those of us who want to know and be vigilent so that these practices never happen again, In the Name of Science is a book that will keep you riveted. From the opening chapters, which describe experiments with chemical and biological agents to the last two chapters, which describe ethnic weapons and what the future holds to the more than 100 pages of appendices (declassified documents, letters, memos, etc.), Goliszek does a good job of detailing what many of us don't want to hear but need to. It's a book that everyone ought to read.

Rehash of few sources:a real injustice to real investigators
This is an extremely superficial book on medical experimentation. Most of his material could come
from Jay Katz's massive book on human experimentation that was published in 1972 or from summaries; anything since Katz are from selected other sources that are treated briefly. There is no original research here, very little analysis of human experiments, and the stealing and summarizing of
other peoples work. He ignores completely the four year long hearings of the Kennedy Sub-committee that led to the 1974-1979 examination of medical experiments. He also ignores completely much of the work of the Nationaol Commission of the 1990's. The Commission was primarily a whitewash of human experiments, but an analysis of the flaws, in light of reality, would have helped move this book a little way from the superficial treatment Goliszek gives us. Let me give a couple of examples. Goliszek talks about radiation experiments on humans by way of a summary of Eileen Welsome's book, The Plutonium Files; Welsome's book is a comprehensive treatment of parts of radiation experiments; the author ignores completely, however, the very detailed work of Martha Stephens, The Treatment, about radiation treatments in Cincinnati, Ohio
that is, like Welsome's, a model of how research should be carried out. Goliszek's treatment is a superficial treatment that is misleading because he presents material that has been known about, and analyzed rather than summarized as Goliszek does in his work, for 60 years or so. To really know what is happening, and has happened, in medical research, read the original researchs and analysis. Skip Goliszek altogether as a waste of time, and an impediment to a real understanding of medical experiments. One other point: Amazon oftens hypes a book such as Goliszek's to promote sales. This seems to be one of those cases.

Thomas Patterson
Deming New Mexico

Covers scientific side effects from early to modern times
Science has always had its dark side, always having a cost to the development of life-saving technologies and solutions to human problems. In The Name Of Science covers scientific side effects from early to modern times, covering everything from Medieval disease treatment to modern gene therapy. Ethics and social issues are considered in light of these revelations about discovery, experimentation, and science's side effects.

Controversial, Scary, Entertaining, and Enlightening
I can understand why people will either praise this book as a landmark work that everyone ought to read or criticize it because it includes a lot of information that makes us pretty darn uncomfortable with what we have done. Not surprisingly, the critics seem to not want to know or to not want to believe that we are still capable of such things. Very narrowminded. For those of us who truly want to know, In The Name of Science is a well-documented book that will send a chill up your spine. As one leading authority on Gulf War Syndrome and government activity has said, "It is the book I wish I had written . . . everyone in this country needs to read this book." I absolutely agree. Despite some naysayers who may find it too dark or too cynical, it should be required reading for anyone wishing to be enlightened as well as entertained. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The Complete Illustrated Guide to Chinese Medicine is a fine prescription for those tired of the bureaucracy or the ineffectiveness of Western medicine. It's also a good resource for those who are just interested in exploring ways to improve their general health. Replete with hundreds of color photographs that lucidly introduce and explain the arts of acupuncture, meditation, acupressure massage, and herbalism, the book includes fitness programs such as qigong and taiji, which help to unblock Qi (pronounced "chee"), the body's life force. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) focuses on Qi and maintains that imbalances of Qi cause illness.The Complete Illustrated Guide shows the meridians, or energy fields, that determine the placement of acupuncture needles to stimulate the Qi. It also explains shen the mental aspect of the body; jing, the constitution; and zangfu, the organ systems. Numerous case studies show how traditional Chinese medical techniques have been used to diagnose and treat patients with various complaints, including heartburn, PMS, and exhaustion. Overall, this is a solid, beautifully organized resource for the family that you'll turn to again and again. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

lfoote
This book was loaned to me by a fellow physician and I had a hard time giving it back. It's a great resource for information that covers a little of everything in Chinese Medicine. I practice acupuncture and have found much of the information useful for preparing lectures, not only for the general public, but for other physicians as well. It's a versatile book good not only for it's comprehensive content, but also as a coffee table book as the illustrations are great. Would heartily recommend it to anyone interested in understanding the vast offerings of Chinese Medicine.

Good introduction to Traditional Chinese Medicine
As a physician who is studying and doing acupuncture, I find this a good basic introduction to Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is heavily illustrated, which helps the reader to understand some very difficult concepts, which are alien to the Western mind, especially for medical personnel. I can highly recommend it for someone who is interested in becoming familiar with Acupuncture and other Traditional Chinese Medicine. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

"Nursing at its Finest"
This is a well-done pictorial review of nursing over the century as title indicates. It is a beautiful reflection from the 1900's to the current status of the Advanced Practice Nurse today. It includes biographies and photos across the United States and abroad wherever nurses served. It begins the story of nursing from the Henry Street Settlement with the acknowledgement that "prevention of illness is cheaper than caring for the ill" by Lillian Wald for Metropolitan Life Insurance in 1902. The turbulent times of 1990's with nurses on strike during a critical time when healthcare needs are expanding is also adressed-as Congresswoman Barbara Jordan says "This is no time for nurses' numbers to be declining: Congress has just expanded Medicare. Without nurses we don't have a system." It concludes with a comment from Margaretta Styles addressing the need for credentialing to meet the needs of all-especially the underserved. Stories are told throughout from nurses in WWI through Desert Storm. ... Read more

Book Description

This unique atlas includes over 475 full color photomicrographs while providing students with a readily accessible source of morphologic information for use in the identification of tissues and organs. Each photomicrograph is accompanied by explanatory captions that guide students to the key morphologic features that identify the function of the structures. The self-assessment section at the end of the book serves as a review tool for those structures that students traditionally have difficulty in identifying. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Great Atlas
I'm a med student and found this atlas to be a great source for studying for the my class exams. The pictures are great and it makes the facts easier to learn. Squamous cell epithelium never looked so good. I also used the following:
Histology Study Guide: Key Review Questions and Answers by Patrick Leonardi
This study guide helped me with test preparation because it showed me what to focus on and the type of questions that were asked on my tests. I highly recommend both books.

This is an excellent atlas.
I found the color atlas to be extremely helpful. The images are very clear and structures are labeled. It's a useful guide for medical students new to histology.

It is a the name says just an atlas
You need to know from other sources to understand the pictures.
Quality of the paper and pictures are good but unfortunately there is hardly any explanation what they are, what the functions are. It is not just because they run out of space, one side of the page is generally empty. I guess it is the concept that needs to be changed. Yes pictures are worth tousands of words but it would be much nices with some talk.Book is divided into systems. Book is also missing a short introduction that could have been very helpful.

Best Atlas Available
I've done a lot of searching into histo atlases. This one has the best photographs of all I saw. They are untouched by artwork like other atlases. They are the real thing, which I think is important for future practice with the microscope. There are two problems with this atlas. First, although the photographs are organized quite logically, there is no boldface title above each one. It is annoying when you are browsing the book. I remedied this by writing in my own titles, but it would be SO much nicer. The second thing is there is no histological information contained with the photos. There are only small description boxes next to each. Unfortunately to my knowledge there is no such thing as a histology atlas that has high-yield histo information included. I think if the company who made this atlas adds high-yield info the resulting book would be used by every medical student in the country. What's ironic is there is so much white space in this atlas. It's as if the publisher intended to add in info boxes, but never got around to it. All we need are small bites of info like exists in the High-Yield series with the beautiful photos in this atlas.

If you are the publishers of this book, heed my advice and you'll make a fortune. Medical students like to have everything wrapped up in neat little packages instead of cross-references several sources. It makes studying so much easier. ... Read more

Book Description

In this book, Oldstone focuses on several of the most famous viruses humanity has battled,.He begins with some we have effectively defeated, such as smallpox, polio, measles, and yellow fever, then describes the fascinating viruses that have captured headlines in more recent years: Ebola and other hemorrhagic fevers, Hantavirus, mad cow disease, and, of course, AIDS. He goes on to tell of the many scientists watching and waiting even now for the next great plague,monitoring influenza strains to see whether the deadly variant from 1918a viral strain that killed over 20 million people in1918-1919will make a comeback. Viruses have wiped out cities, brought down dynasties, and helped destroy civilizations.But, as Michael Oldstone reveals, scientific research has given us the power to tame many of these viruses as well. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The focus on historical impact makes this book worthwhile.
It is a shame that the decisive impact of communicable diseases on history are typically underplayed in school books. This information needs to be known by every educated person. Dr. Oldstone's book provides both an account of medical progress and its context in social and cultural history. In meeting these goals, this book succeeds admirably. Dr. Oldstone writes well. His expertise shines in his understanding of critical events in scientific development, and his knowledge of the contributions of both well-known and obscure scientists indicates a mastery of the breadth of the field. This scholarship is enhanced by his personal interactions with many of the 20th Century's great virologists, many of them familiar names, including Salk, Sabin, Montagnier, Gallo and Enders, among others. Some of the best illustrations in the books come from Dr. Oldstone's own research.
The discussion of the impact of viral disease on wars and public life are both factual and pointed. Having recently read, Jared Diamond's important book, "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies", I find Dr. Oldstone's exposition of many of the same stories support Diamond's conclusions while providing important additional information. I have read many other discussions of the disastrous impact of smallpox virus on Native Americans, but Oldstone goes beyond reporting victimization to point out that the Chiefs of the Five Nations were astute enough to be among the first to adopt Edward Jenner's discovery and vaccinate their own people, while in Europe resistance to this new approach continued. The Chiefs sent Jenner a letter and a ceremonial belt in thanks for his discovery.
It is fascinating how the social responses to lethal epidemics have not changed over the centuries, even into the 1990's (panic, cover-up, attempts to turn away fleeing refugees). The horrendous yellow fever epidemic of 1878 in my home town, Memphis, Tennessee, is described in some detail, particularly pointing out the selfless devotion of the physicians, nurses and religious orders who chose to stay, 60% of whom did not survive.
There are, however, some weaknesses. The third chapter, on immunology, is written very densely. Unlike the other chapters, there is no historical development, just a statement of the facts. Since this chapter contains information important for understanding later chapters, it should have been better developed with historical anecdotes to increase interest. The book is limited to a selection of viruses, but the reason for their inclusion and not others is unstated. Some very poorly-understood (but very dangerous) viruses are included, while others of great interest to a general audience (rhinoviruses = cold viruses) are absent. Research on many of these viruses and the eradication of poliovirus continues to advance, so that the information in this book should already be supplemented with readings from current science news. The editing by Oxford University Press is erratic and flawed. There are many typos and omissions. For example, in Chapter 13 the work of Zigas and Gajdusek on Kuru is first located in New Zealand, later (correctly) in New Guinea. In the same chapter I read that meat contaminated with Mad Cow disease was mislabeled and sold in St. Petersburg, but that turns out to be St. Petersburg, Russia, not Florida, as I first guessed. Many dates are absent, which makes it hard to get a sense of the rate of progress. The index is very sparse. For example, although rabies is mentioned in the text, there is no index entry for that virus. The description and explanation of ultrafiltration devices and other material is repeated several times in various chapters. The Works Cited contains numerous identical references to the same papers, for example the historic 1989 paper of Loeffler and Frosch on hoof and mouth disease.
Overall, the problems amount to an irritation. I recommend this book as an introduction to the field.

Don¿t give up on this one too soon
This is an good book that unfortunately starts out in a very forbidding manner with a difficult (at least for me) introduction to the principles of virology in Chapter 1 followed by the principles of immunology in Chapter 2, but then gets very readable. The material on smallpox and yellow fever is fascinating. Oldstone leaves it unclear whether mad cow disease is caused by a miss-manufactured prion protein or by a virus: Others books, including Richard Rhodes' Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague (1997), clearly cite the cause as being faulty prion protein production in the brain.

This is not for the squeamish. I confess that there were twenty or so pages on polio that I skipped, not wanting to relive that sadness, although of course the defeat of polio is one of the great triumphs in the history of medicine. Incidentally, the title owes something to the classic Rats, Lice and History, by Hans Zinsser, first published in 1934, a book that has enjoyed a well-deserved and remarkable commercial success not easily duplicated.

Not great
I was not impressed by this book. I admit I have, so far, only glanced at it. What I found was:

- one factual error: Sherlock Holemns was based on Prof Joeseph Bell not Dr Charles Bell

- a very cursory description of the history and recent outbreak of the Ebola virus. I would expect Time magazine to have a better article;

- an exetremely cursory description of Hantaviruses. The Field Guide to Germs by Wayne Biddle does it better;

- avarege descriptions of the histories of "classic" infectious diseases such as yellow fever. I recommend Plague, Pox & Pestilence by Kenneth F. Kipple (Ed.) for an excellent lay introduction to the topic. ... Read more

Book Description

The Black Death was the fourteenth century's equivalent of a nuclear war. It wiped out one-third of Europe's population, takingmillion lives. And yet, most of what we know about it is wrong. The details of the Plague etched in the minds of terrified schoolchildren -- the hideous black welts, the high fever, and the awful end by respiratory failure -- are more or less accurate. But what the Plague really was and how it made history remain shrouded in a haze of myths.

Now, Norman Cantor, the premier historian of the Middle Ages, draws together the most recent scientific discoveries and groundbreaking historical research to pierce the mist and tell the story of the Black Death as a gripping, intimate narrative.

Reviews (116)

a waste of time and misleading, read Tuchman instead
As a European history teacher, I hoped that I would get some tidbits from this for my class and for my own edification. I found neither. I have trouble imagining that this writer is actually a Medieval scholar. I suspect he is suffering from Alzheimers. He has the reverence for facts of Ronald Reagan, among other dopey innacuracies: the end of the Roman empire is put two centuries late, the Romans he says had been fending off the Arabs for millennia (even though the Roman empire existed for less than one millennia), the plague came from Africa-it clearly came from East Asia. Further the writing style is terrible. It is nearly unreadable. There is constant repetition, bizarre and awkward phrases "biomedical disaster" and no structure. Each chapter wanders around without a thesis, repeats earlier chapters and makes pathetic attempts to tie in to recent events. There are also a huge number of ridiculous theories (plague was from outer space, without the plague the scientific revolution would have come centuries earlier, etc.) which Cantor badly explains and then doesn't critically evaluate. They might be true, he muses, without looking at any facts.
I suspect that this was cobbled together from hastily written lecture notes for an introductory history class for brain dead undergraduates without the editing that it desperately needs. Don't waste your time on this, there is almost nothing to learn here.
Instead read Barbara Tuchman's long, but fully researched and wonderfully detailed book: A Distant Mirror about the 14th century. It has a very powerful chapter on the plague and gives a real sense of Medieval life.

Medieval-like writing
Dr. Cantor is a medievalist, and writes in the style of his subjects: very rambling, with a tendency to ramify tediously so he can talk at length about what he finds interesting, whether or not it is relevant. Some good information, some mistakes even a non-scholar reader like me could spot. Not a lot about the plague. Some peculiar theories. What seems to me a misapplication of 20th-century terminology to 14th-century groups (for instance, what sounds like raiders or harriers, he calls terrorists).

Easy read, if somewhat jumbled
I bought this book at the airport in Boston and found it appropriate as an "airport book." On a late night flight, it was entertaining but not intense. Nor was it well organized. The end of the book abruptly stops with comments about Chaucer rather than a summing up of the main thesis. One gets the impression of an erudite academician, late in life, with lots to say but very little energy to say it in an organized way. Some of the errors are obvious, even to someone with only surface knowledge of the period. For example, he states somewhere in the book that Constantinople fell in the 14th century rather than in 1453. But for all that .. it is a quick read and can be considered as something like a "bathroom reader" -- full of interesting tid bits but without much of a unifying thread. His earlier books were much better organized. Maybe he just needs to take a vacation. I'd recommend it as a airplane or beach book (aka "history lite").

Did not meet expectations
I was given this book to read after a family member finished it. I wish I had asked their opinion of it prior to reading it. Not considering myself a subject matter expert, I was hoping for something a bit more substantive. What I got instead was a book filled with a wandering dialogue, broken up in places by the author's personal conjecture/supposition on unrelated matters. If I had wanted Cantor's opinion on today's British royal family, or the current state of the Catholic church, I certainly wasnt expecting to get it in here. But you will and more...
While it was readable, the lack of documentation was somewhat annoying to say the least. I am sure there are other more weighty and well-written tomes on this subject matter. Dont look here if you want the one-stop shop for the issue.
I cant say that I put the book down not learning something new, because I did--but I felt Cantor's own admonition in the text of other authors' predicament with publish or perish certainly reflected on his own writing here.

Avoid this like the Plague
Cantor strikes a populist direction with this book. He affects a breezy writing style (one can easily imagine much of his writing as a spoken, off-the-cuff lecture punctuated by more-or-less amusing asides, some of which totally derail his train of thought), the book is short (only 220 pages of text) and there is not a single footnote. The obvious comparison in terms of subject matter is to Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. Tuchman made a best seller from her remarkable approach in spite of her scholarly writing-style. Cantor's book lacks that sophistication of approach, and is further marred, as other reviewers have already noted, by too much repetition, too many asides, too much unsupported speculation, too many inconsistencies, and too many factual errors. There is some merit to the book, but its flaws far outweigh its worth.

Cantor at his best cites an interesting theory: that the Black Death was not a single disease, but two or more--not bubonic plague alone, but also some cattle-borne disease such as a particularly virulent form of anthrax. Supporting this theory are the Black Death's infestation of Iceland, an isolated island not known to have rats until the 17th Century, the often extremely rapid course of the disease--faster than that of bubonic plague; the lack of typical bubonic plague symptoms in many victims; the evidence that cattle were ravished by the Black Death; and the continued virulence of the plague in winter months when flea hosts would not normally live. The theory is not Cantor's own, but he has researched and supported it in seemingly convincing fashion, but he ignores the actual nature of the disease in its "pneumatic" form. Less adequate is Cantor's chapter "Heritage of the African Rifts", which discusses the three pandemics of smallpox, gonorrhea, and plague and places their origin in "the great mortality chute from East Africa. Certainly that is where the bubonic plague came from after A.D. 500." But in his bibliography Cantor cites William H. McNeill's Plagues and Peoples and says, contradicting his own earlier statement written with such certainty, "McNeill thought the Mongols, their migrations and conquests, were a key to plague history; there may be something in that."

Also of interest, but clearly quirky, was Cantor's chapter on various speculations on the true cause of the Black Death. "Serpents and Cosmic Dust" covers alternative explanations for the "biomedical catastrophe" from the medieval to the present, focusing on two suggestions: the first, that snakes were the carriers; the second, that plague came from outer space. Cantor is kind, although not entirely enthusiastic, about these speculations: at one point he says "It is just possible that medieval writers who placed the origins of the Black Death in serpents dispensing plague as they swam up rivers were on to something." Unfortunately, the only "evidence" he offers is that another historian on an unrelated issue once took medieval writers at their word in the face of academic thought and has since been vindicated. The argument in favor of the cosmic dust theory is basically that it was proposed by eminent astrophysicist Fred Hoyle--what is not mentioned is Hoyle's second career as a well-known science fiction writer. Hoyle's is a fascinating speculation, which only the most flimsy of circumstantial evidence can currently support.

Cantor mentions one fascinating fact in this chapter that needed to be explored much further: plague was not widespread in Poland and Bohemia. This has been explained "by the rats' avoidance of these areas due to the unavailability of food the rodents found palatable." This seems unlikely --elsewhere Cantor points out the relative agricultural wealth of Poland and the Ukraine. Could Polish grain really be considerably different than Western European grain--and what of the anthrax theory, which would have the disease unaffected by the rodent's diet?

Socio-cultural differences between Poland and Bohemia and the rest of Europe would make an ideal testing ground for those theories concerning the effect the Black Death had on society, the arts, and religion. But rather than do any original research comparing plague-ridden and plague-free areas, Cantor merely launches into various criticisms of his colleagues' work in his final chapter, "Aftermath". Cantor examines these theories and subjects them to a much less forgiving critique than the far wilder speculations mentioned previously. Some of these attacks are odd indeed, such as critiquing a book published in 1919! This is the most poorly written and argued part of the entire book, and honestly I cannot tell to what conclusion Cantor comes-whether the Black Death did or did not have any profound effect beyond killing off certain talented individuals.

Finally, the outright errors. Rather than repeat those caught by other reviewers, I'll discuss the extraordinary apparent claim of time-travel. Cantor recounts the story of the le Strange/Talbot family. Richard Talbot inherited the la Strange estate from the dowager Mary upon her "dying in 1396." (Whether this was a plague-related death Cantor apparently deems unimportant.) Later in the chapter we are told "Richard Talbot, newly enriched by the le Strange fortune, got his father out of debtor's prison and the old soldier died of the plague in 1387 in Spain..." How could Richard have paid his father's debts with money he wouldn't receive for nine more years? I cannot account for the chronology of events without either contemplating a typographical error, a rift in the space-time continuum, or a mis-informed or deeply confused author. Hopefully it is the former, and Mary died ten years earlier than Cantor reports; but I am left with the discomforting concern that the dates are correct and Cantor simply speculated on Talbot's source of funds. Unfortunately this is not an isolated error.

While Cantor's book is more up-to-date than Barbara Tuchman's is, I can't recommend it, even as a supplement. It is too deeply flawed on too many levels. I'm left to wonder if some horrible computer virus didn't work its way through the manuscript, decimating the writing and killing at least 40% of the ultimate value of the book. As Cantor says, "It is just possible." ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The Discovery of the Germ: Twenty Years That Transformed the
Most people learned whatever they know about the discovery of the connection between germs and disease either from Paul DeKruif's Microbe Hunters (1926) or from a chapter of their high school biology text. Waller (research fellow, University College London's Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine) presents a new telling of an old tale. The familiar characters are here--Pasteur, Lister, Koch, Semmelweis--and others who will be new to many readers--Davaine, Haffkine, and Wright. The development of the germ theory was hardly linear; fields as diverse as agriculture, sericulture, or surgery contributed necessary pieces. Waller handles these diverse threads and weaves a coherent narrative out of them. Besides describing how the idea of "germ" grew into today's microbiology, Waller also includes perspectives on science from recent social histories of science and medicine that place the discovery of germs in its social and intellectual context. The book's ample-for-its-size bibliography is a useful tool. ... Read more

Book Description

This book explores the ways in which scientific ideas about sex differences in the later Middle Ages participated in the broader cultural assumptions about gender.Professor Cadden discusses how medieval natural philosophical theories and medical notions about reproduction and sexual impulses and experiences intersected with ideas about such matters as the social roles of men and women, the purpose of marriage, and the road to salvation.Grounded in history, feminist theory, and cultural studies, The Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages should appeal to a wide range of scholars and students. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Not really a translation, but still interesting
Translation purists will not have much use for this book. Those new to the subject of Chinese medicine or to Chinese literary classics probably won't get much out of it, either. Ni's translation of the Inner Classic is not especially scholarly, though it is not without scholarship, nor is it really a translation if you want to use that term strictly, any more than Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat is the same work as Khayyam's. Ni himself is very clear in the foreword that his intent was not to produce a scholarly edition. Rather, he hoped his rendition of the Inner Classic would be accessible to a wider audience.

Still, it is an interesting presentation of most of the themes present in the Inner Classic, and it reads more easily than a scholarly treatise. You may call it Inner Classic "lite," but it's at least an earnest attempt. When you consider the age of the Inner Classic and the fact that contemporary Chinese doctors take a semester or a year or more of ancient medical Chinese, reading modern Chinese translations of the ancient text of the Inner Classic, with commentary... this book doesn't seem too bad. This is not damning by faint praise. The Inner Classic is counted as one of the most difficult to approach of the Chinese literary classics. Ni's effort, however flawed, is still impressive.

Ni is a teacher of Chinese medicine and a Chinese doctor from a medical lineage, and his book, on the balance, does a respectable job of conveying the spirit of the Inner Classic to the reader of English - no easy task. As an introduction, and to the extent that this book sparks an interest in further study of the ancient medical literature, it should not be considered a failure.

Be very careful using this translation
This translation is a paraphrase at best, and contains some disturbing contradictions to other translations of the same text, including my own spot translations to check on these. While I'm not a classical scholar, some of these are fairly obvious. Also, a lot of interpolated material is not set off in any way. It is interesting to read this translation in the context of the two other main translations now available, Lianshang Wu's (which has the Chinese text, but has a poor English text which is closer to the original) and Veith's (which is more arbitrary, possibly because she had no background in TCM), but don't rely on this for clinical advice, it is spoon feeding you one man's opinion, and in this persons opinion, it isn't very good.

a solid paraphrase for the practitioner
While this book is sometimes criticised for its lack of scholarly style, it is important to realize that the writer is approaching a 2,500 year old work, the seminal theoretical treatise of Chinese medicine, from the point of view of a clinician. It is frankly not much easier for native speakers of Chinese to approach the Neijing in its original form than it is for Westerners. Moreover, Mr Ni comes from a medical family spanning several generations of physicians. Being a practitioner myself, I can attest to the correctness of the decisions made in preparing this book. He has done a commendable job in making this ancient classic accessible to modern readers. Chinese physicians make use of this material during nearly every moment spent in the clinic. It is practical in a way that sinologists locked in their ivory towers can scarcely imagine.

Those who would prefer a dry, smugly academic translation with separate footnotes, devoid of historical context or cultural annotation, would do well to investigate Ilza Veith's translation of the Neijing; a valiant effort which inevitably fails as a result of its refusal to acknowledge the living traditions surrounding the text itself.

expected a more scholarly treatment
I expected a more, I don't know, historical? scholarly? treatment of the subject of the Suwen. I claim no skill at translation of ancient Chinese characters, nor interpretation of Chinese philosophical writings (ancient or otherwise) but I had hoped for at least some original text or side-by-side comparison of the text and the translation. Maoshing Ni provides neither of these things.

Some people may appreciate the lack of academic interruptions commonly affecting a work of this kind in the form of copious footnotes. Maoshing Ni goes to great pains to incorporate these footnotes directly into the text, but I find this practice more frustrating than the footnotes themselves. There's no indication what is actually translated text and what is explanation inserted by the translator. And while I agree that translations of ancient Chinese are difficult to bring to English, especially those by authors who prided themselves on brevity and multi-layered meanings, the readers' clues typical of most translations (e.g. footnotes, original text, clearly indicated guesswork) were not present in this book and made it a most disappointing read for me. ... Read more

Book Description

For those on both sides of the dreaded dentist's chair, James Wynbrandt has written a witty, colorful, and richly informative history of the art and science of dentistry.To all of those dental patients whose whine rises in tandem with that of the drill, take note: You would do well to stifle your terror and instead offer thanks to Apollonia, the patron saint of toothache sufferers, that you face only fleeting discomfort rather than the disfiguring distress, or slow agonizing death oft meted out by dental-care providers of the past.The transition from yesterday's ignorance, misapprehension, and superstition to the enlightened and nerve-deadened protocols of today has been a long, slow, and very painful process.For example, did you know that: *Among the toothache remedies favored by Pierre Fauchard, the father of dentistry, was rinsing the mouth liberally with one's own urine.*George Washington never had wooden teeth.However, his chronic dental problems may have impacted the outcome of the American Revolution. *Soldiers in the Civil War needed at least two opposing front teeth to rip open powder envelopes.Some men called up for induction had their front teeth extracted to avoid service. *Teeth were harvested from as many as fifty thousand corpses after the Battle of Waterloo, a huge crop later used for dentures and transplants that became known as "Waterloo Teeth." ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Well researched, and brilliantly funny
From its quirky title through the painful truths of the profession, the writing is masterful. If you have a mind for tongue in cheek humor beautifully written, the book is for you. Not a subject you ever cared much about? It doesn't matter. This author makes it fun.

Interesting history book
I enjoyed this book, but it was rather a slow read most of the time. Some really funny incidents are chronicled here. Best for people in the dental profession and not just the medical profession at large (like me.) ... Read more

Book Description

Hailed as "a remarkable achievement" (Boston Sunday Globe) and as "a triumph: simultaneously entertaining and instructive, witty and thought-provoking . . . a splendid and thoroughly engrossing book" (Los Angeles Times), Roy Porter's charting of the history of medicine affords us an opportunity as never before to assess its culture and science and its costs and benefits to mankind. Porter explores medicine's evolution against the backdrop of the wider religious, scientific, philosophical, and political beliefs of the culture in which it develops, covering ground from the diseases of the hunter-gatherers to today's threat of AIDS and ebola, from the clearly defined conviction of the Hippocratic oath to the muddy ethical dilemmas of modern-day medicine. Offering up a treasure trove of historical surprises along the way, this book "has instantly become the standard single-volume work in its field" (The Lancet). The Greatest Benefit to Mankind was a finalist for the National Book Critic's Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and a New York Times Notable Book of 1998. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

A landmark for historical writing
This book delievers what it was written to deliever. It wasn't meant to be a brain candy, witty, clever, majestic, novel that makes the common person rush out to apply to medical school. It is going to seem "boring" if you don't want to LEARN about THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE. An excellent book preceding this to read would be "Guns, Germs, and Steel," by Jared Diamond to put things in a solid historical reality. This book is five stars, but be ready to engage yourself with the text, buy a highlighter if it helps you concentrate, go back to college, pretend you need to get an A in the History of Western Medicine, because you will have an A+ perspective on medicine if you keep the correct perspective regarding this book.

More a European History
This is the second review of three I have done of socio-medical histories written of edited by Roy Porter (you can read the others on my reivew page). I read and compared this to The "Cambridge Illustrated History: Medicine", and "Gout, the Patrician Maladay". I thought this was the best approach as people might be like me, looking for a reference work to buy and trying to toss up between which one to get and what the advantages and disadvantages of one over another.

In terms of content I think this is the more comprehensive of the two general reference works. It is over twice the length of Cambridge (over 800 pages in this one compared to not quite 400). It also doesn't have pages taken up with illustrations as Cambridge does. That is probably the thing I like least about this book, there are only three small sections in the middle with some black and white pictures reproduced - I think on comparison I do prefer the slightly more expensive version of having pictures on the pages I am reading for this kind of reference work.

The book is divided into 22 chapters which follow the rise of Western medicine more or less chronologically. There are also chapters included on Chinese and Indian Medicine, but expect the emphasis to be European in both history and development. Each chapter is divided into specific topics which are discussed a structure I quite enjoyed as it broke up the text and made it more readable.

I looked up some specific subjects to compare this with the Cambrige work and in each case (among them Purperal fever, Galen, Resurrectionists) this book had far more detailed and comprehensive explanations, often citing broad statistics. However writing the a social and medical history of mankind is difficult to do full justice even in 800-some pages. It does give a slightly provide more detail but I wasn't really sure that the slightly greater detail was that much of an advantage to make up for the loss of illustration. In the end this is still only slightly more detail on broad trends rather than in-depth discussion. He does cover some people and subjects not dealt with in "Cambridge" including people like Dr James Barry, the first female surgeon (although she was masquerading as a man at the time) - but of course the space available doesn't allow Porter to discuss any of her other significant work as, in terms of forwarding the field of medicine, she was not earth-shattering.

Porter has a very good-natured and readable style of writing though and I really enjoyed it. He breaks this chapters up into short sections and interspeses them with rather nice jokes for instance on page 129 he writes of 'Trotula'said to be a female of 12th century medical school in Salerno but says " 'Dame Trot' was more likely a male writing in drag."

So while I very much enjoyed the book and would certainly have no qualms in recommending it to read at all, I do hold some reservations about it - but strictly in comparison with what else is available.

more a reference than a good read
this book is not easy to read. it reads like an encyclopedia, and a bad one at that. i could only bear a few hundred pages of it before i felt that i was wasting my time. only for the serious medical history student.

Tedious
When I read the NYTimes review of this book I bought it with anxious anticipation. After all, years ago I had absolutely loved Rene Dubos' "The Mirage of Health". However, this book was like wading through knee deep mud. So much for the book reviews in the papers. I know it is a gargantuan task, but someone needs to write a really interesting, flowing, readable book (or a series of books) about this fascinating subject. I also realize that much about this subject is unknown or speculation, but still...

A continental history of medicine
While anyone will admit that a complete history of medicine is a daunting task, Roy Porter manages to fall far short of his goal. The author purports to write a history of medicine but brings a distinctively European slant to the topic. He relegates American medical triumphs as eventual consequences of the medical knowledge originating in Europe. In addition he compensates for a lack of substance with a painful abundance of detail. There is a good discussion of "alternative" medicine, but the author asserts the superiority of Western Medicine and then neglects the topic. The result is a disjointed and painful read that can only appeal to diehard medical historians. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Whereas many popular books on microbes focus on contemporary pathogens and emerging epidemics, Arno Karlen's Man and Microbes provides a historical look at the coevolution of humans and microorganisms. Karlen speculates that infections are integral to the process of life itself, that the mitochondria in every animal cell, for instance, are likely descendants of infectious agents. He then traces the development of man from primitive hunter-gatherer to urban dweller to world traveler, pointedly analyzing how socio-ecological changes have contributed to the changing incidence of disease. With amazing detail, Karlen describes the origins of historical plagues (smallpox, cholera, influenza, polio, and others) as well as the emergence of scourges such as hemorrhagic fever (Ebola and its cousins), Lyme disease, Legionnaires' disease, and even the deep mysteries of retroviruses such as HIV. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

A Microbe Primer!
This book briefly sketches plagues and infectious diseases, from ancient times and of earliest recorded writings, to the present day (1995). Some terrible times for humanity are included in this book, such as when 5000 people a day were dying in Rome around A.D. 251-266 from perhaps measles or smallpox plague, to present day AIDS.

Arno Karlen writes in a style very easy to read. The science in this book seems to be excellent, you can learn a lot about how diseases are spread, from animals and insects to us, and between people, and how diseases mutate over time and people adapt to them so they are sometimes less virulent later than when first encountered. Also covered is how diseases are spread thru behavior and when man alters his environment, two examples being cities and agriculture.

Many diseases are covered in this volume, if you are interested in reading more about any individual disease there are books on just about any one of them to learn more.

A disease progress report at the end of the 20th Century
Published in the UK as 'Plague's Progress: A Social History of Man and Disease', Karlen provides the reader here with an excellent introduction to the topic of the natural, as well as social history of the most common human life-threatening diseases. Covered here are all the usual (as well as some more unusual) suspects, from mediaeval plagues to AIDS and CJD; from soldiers not warring due to disease outbreak, to war outbreak being signalled by disease. Although there are some one-liners for conspiracy theorists with regards man-made disease vectors, the principal thesis of this book is that new pandemic and epidemic outbreaks of disease result from changes in human and other microbe host behaviours and the situated environment(s) in which these changes take place. For example, changes in land usage, habitat (as much in the 'home' as in the field), species interactions, development & redevelopment, etc.., necessarily give rise to novel ecological niches available for exploitation by any number of host/pathogenic organisms and disease vector transmission pathways. Karlen is correct to further emphasise the point that such opportunist developments and novel disease situations arise from constructive events (aircraft transportation of secondary hosts, air-conditioner habitats and overuse of antibiotics) as much as from destructive events (deforestation and animal extintions give rise to traditional host-parasite species shifts). A useful summary table is provided of the time-line of recent life-threatening contagious diseases, but I found myself annotating the margin with a few more details concerning each (e.g., secondary host - rodent, cattle, insect; virus/bacteria/protozoan organism etc) - all of which was nonetheless available in the text of the book. Although a delicate subject for those suffering from any of the conditions described here (both directly and by atives/carers nearby), Karlen presents both an informative and entertaining dialogue for the newcomer to the topic of disease - clearly accessible and in non-technical language for the lay reader looking for a clearer understanding of a life-threatening phenomena that is likely to always be with us in some form. If I were to have any grumbles, they would relate solely to a few of my own particular interests in a couple of theories given short thrift here. Such might include exposures to man-made/altered disease vectors (cf: Moreno; whether they be designed for plant, insect or human control via innoculation) and the theories put forward by writers such as Lyn Margulis (symbiotic evolution) and the more esoteric writings of Hoyle & Wickramasinge or Francis Crick. So much better informed concerning the role of natural, political and historical events influencing pandemic and epidemic disease evolution, following our reading of this Kaplan book one might be in a better position to explain our forgetting of the 1918 flu pandemic, the last widespread disease within living memory, taking a total number of lives far greater than the toll of the last century's World Wars combined. How, and whether, such information will be used to manage the future of our social behaviour, demography, medical practice, and our continuing scientific research culture, we must await the coming years to find out.

References:

Crick: Life Itself.

Hoyle & Wickramasinge: Diseases from Space; Evolution from Space.

Margulis & Fester: Symbiosis as a source of Evolutionary Innovation.

Margulis & Sagan: Microcosmos.

Moreno: Undue Risk.

A Fascinating and Frightening History of Disease
Arno Karlen's "Man and Microbes" is an informative and well-written account of the history of disease that is accessible to specialists and non-specialists alike. It is well-researched and it is written in the natural style of a storyteller. Karlen covers a wide span of time, starting off about five million years ago when our ancestors descended from the trees to the ground and finishing in the 1990s. He looks at a range of diseases, including the Mystery Disase of Pudoc, influenza, Lyme Disease, and AIDS, and looks at them through the themes of change (changes in environment, technology, interaction/behavior, lifestyle) and adaptation (human adaptation to disease and vice versa). Karlen ends the book on a hopeful note, and reminds the reader that while history shows so many instances of disease it also shows many instances of humans adapting to and dealing with disease.

I was a little initimidated about reading this book, since I have a pathetic knowledge of science. However, I found the book very readable and I can honestly say that I have a greater appreciation for science and for the human ability to survive after having read the book. A must-read!

A good read on an important topic, but lacking in detail
The author presents a convincing series of anecdotes to support his hypothesis that many infectious diseases result from environmental and cultural changes. This postulate is very topical given the recent experience with SARS.

It is an enjoyable read, most suitable for a lay person looking for a general overview of infectious diseases in human history.

On the other hand, the covereage of individual diseases is very shallow. Those interested in an in depth analysis of the history of a given disease should look elsewhere.

Very good overview of the history of infectious diseases
After "Plagues and peoples", a classical book by William McNeill that first appeared in 1975, I read this book, which was first published in 1995. The contents are more or less the same, but Arno Karlen has a more modern style of writing, making this book more readable. Even though the last chapters give at times a somewhat alarmist view of what we are heading for, the author gives a very good overview of the history of infectious diseases and also the "epidemic of epidemics" as he calls it which is happening right now: from AIDS to SARS and from West Nile virus to the return with a vengeance of tuberculosis. Due to the enormous population pressure, human mobility and the ever increasing demands we make on our environment, new diseases and their rapid spread are only a breath away.

When one reads this book, it also becomes obvious how fast both the diseases and the medical science that has to fight them are developing: SARS was (of course) nowhere in sight in 1995 and the origin of prion diseases like mad cows' disease (which we now know is caused by the alteration of a protein that is always present in the brain) was still very uncertain at time. This book still is a very smooth read and definitely worth your time if you are interested in infectious diseases and their history. ... Read more

Book Description