MEDICAL BOOK: 250 Milestones in the History of Medicine

Today in Western medicine organ transplants are routine, the mystery of DNA and even the human genome has been solved, surgical techniques are mind-boggling and many once-fatal diseases have been eradicated. Yet to reach this point has taken thousands of years, step by step, from a time when even a dirty cut could lead to infection and death, the flow of blood around the body was a mystery and cells were not even a concept. In this handsome gilt-edged bonded leather black volume, Clifford Pickover takes us from prehistoric shamans and witch doctors and trepanation right up to growing new organs and the possibilities offered by stem cell research in 250 carefully chosen steps. He covers AIDS, polymerase chain reaction, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or ideas from the medical fringe such as witch doctors, patent medicines, bloodletting, and near-death experiences. Entries are kept deliberately concise (one page) and feature a full-page colour clinical or medical illustration on the adjacent page and are arranged chronologically and conveniently feature cross-references to other entries. The joy of this is that the reader can open the book at any page, find a fascinating subject, for example, if we start with the prodigious work of Galen in the 2nd century we are directed to Hippocrates, Al-Razi, pulmonary circulation and the burning of ancient medical texts by Paracelsus, the Swiss physician and "father of toxicology", arguably one of the most important turning points in the history of medicine. Beautifully presented bonded leather cover, gold satin bookmark, 528pp.
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