Showing titles in History & Commentary

Medical historian Sally Sheard reveals the heroic characters and incredible innovations that have shaped our NHS. On 5th July 1948, for the first time anywhere in the world, healthcare in Britain became free for all. Sally Sheard looks at the highs and lows that followed the launch of the National Health Service - and describes what life was like before it. Drawing on unique archive recordings of staff, patients and politicians, including visionary NHS founders William Beveridge and Aneurin Bevan, she tells the stories behind 20 key moments in the history of the NHS.

Medical science has made brilliant discoveries over the last century but as any cancer patient can attest, it has yet to conquer, or even fully comprehend, pain. Beginning with his own battle against severe migraines, and citing numerous case studies of his patients, in Why We Hurt Dr. Frank Vertosick explains how pain evolved, and by highlighting the critical functions it serves, he helps us to understand its value.

“A fascinating look into the strange and sometimes unbelievable history of hypothermic medicine. Jaekl weaves together a story that is part history lesson and part science thriller. This is truly a must-read for any fan of science and science fiction!” —Douglas Talk, MD/MPH, chief medical...

ONE OF TIME 100'S MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2024 A DEBUTIFUL BEST BOOK OF 2024 FEATURED IN NYLON W MAGAZINE GLAMOUR BOOK RIOT HEYALMA BUSTLE ELECTRIC LITERATURE ROMPER AND MORE! "Tender, funny, angry, and sharp as hell. This is an essential book for anyone with a...

On savait que le cerveau était l'entité la plus complexe de l'univers connu. Mais les nouvelles découvertes démontrent que ses possibilités sont bien plus étonnantes qu'on ne le croyait. Non seulement il est totalement élastique - même âgé, handicapé, voire amputé, il peut se reconstruire, apprendre, inventer -, mais aussi totalement social - un cerveau n'existe qu'en résonance avec d'autres : nous sommes neuronalement constitués pour entrer en empathie.

Rebecca Skloot and her best seller, The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, has created a lot of interest in the immortal HeLa cells that were taken from a 31-year-old black woman called Henrietta Lacks without her family's consent at the Johns Hopkins Hospital at Baltimore in 1951. She describes the story of how Henrietta Lacks died and how her cells were sent around the world for medical research.

In recent years, malaria has emerged as a cause célèbre for voguish philanthropists. Bill Gates, Bono, and Laura Bush are only a few of the personalities who have lent their names - and opened their pocketbooks - in hopes of curing the disease. Still, in a time when every emergent disease inspires waves of panic, why aren’t we doing more to eradicate one of our oldest foes? And how does a parasitic disease that we’ve known how to prevent for more than a century still infect 500 million people every year, killing nearly 1 million of them?

This is a book of miracles - medical events witnessed by leading physicians for which there is no reasonable medical explanation, or, if there is, the explanation itself is extraordinary. These dramatic first-person essays detail spectacular serendipities, impossible cures, breathtaking resuscitations, extraordinary awakenings, and recovery from unimaginable disasters. Miracles We Have Seen is a book of inspiration and optimism, and a compelling glimpse into the lives of physicians.

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) was discovered in 1964. At the time, the very idea of a virus underlying a cancer was revolutionary. Cancer is, after all, not catching. Even now, the idea of a virus causing cancer surprises many people. But Epstein-Barr, named after its discoverers, Sir Anthony Epstein and Dr Yvonne Barr, is fascinating for other reasons, too. Almost everyone carries it, yet it is only under certain circumstances that it produces disease.

Nursing is a complex profession steeped in tradition and history. Tried-and-tested ways of working have been the mainstay of how and why nurses do what they do. Science and evidence-based practice have weakened the hold on tradition but ritual is still part of the fabric of nursing. Packed with amusing and sometimes poignant reminiscences, this book paints a picture of nursing from the first registration of SRN No 1, Ethel Bedford Fenwick in 1919, to the present day.

A pediatrician and infectious disease specialist warns of the resurgence of measles, the antivaccine movement, and how we can prepare for the next pandemic Every single child diagnosed with measles represents a system failure—an inexcusable unforced error. The technology to prevent essentially...

I once heard someone say, "You cannot aspire to be something you have never seen." This book is not only for every little Black girl out there who has dreamt of wearing a white coat and stethoscope but also for all the little Black girls who have not dreamt of it because they have never thought it possible.

Opium's Orphans is the first full history of drug prohibition and the "war on drugs." A no-holds-barred but balanced account, it shows that drug suppression was born of historical accident, not rational design. The war on drugs did not originate in Europe or the United States, and even less with President Nixon, but in China. Two Opium Wars followed by Western attempts to atone for them gave birth to an anti-narcotics order that has come to span the globe. But has the war on drugs succeeded? 

Intensive care units and mechanical ventilation are the crucial foundation of modern medical care: without them, the appalling death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic would be even higher. In The Autumn Ghost, Dr. Hannah Wunsch traces the origins of these two innovations back to a polio epidemic in the autumn of 1952. Drawing together testimony from doctors, nurses, medical students, and patients, Wunsch relates a gripping tale of an epidemic that changed the world.

For Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King, surviving in San Francisco meant a life in the shadows. His passing on March 6, 1900, would have been unremarkable if a city health officer hadn't noticed a swollen black lymph node on his groin - a sign of bubonic plague. Empowered by racist pseudoscience, officials rushed to quarantine Chinatown while doctors examined Wong's tissue for telltale bacteria. If the devastating disease was not contained, San Francisco would become the American epicenter of an outbreak that had already claimed 10 million lives worldwide.  

Few diseases are more gruesome than typhus. Transmitted by body lice, it afflicts the dispossessed - refugees, soldiers, and ghettoized peoples - causing hallucinations, terrible headaches, boiling fever, and often death. The disease plagued the German army on the Eastern Front and left the Reich desperate for a vaccine. For this they turned to the brilliant and eccentric Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl.

After the unprecedented events of the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be hard to imagine a time not so long ago when deadly diseases were a routine part of life. It is harder still to fathom that the best medical thinking at that time blamed these diseases on noxious miasmas, bodily humors, and divine dyspepsia. This all began to change on a day in April 1676, when a little-known Dutch merchant described bacteria for the first time. Ending Epidemics explains how we came to understand and prevent many of our worst infectious diseases—and double average life expectancy.

Lindsey Fitzharris' Buch "Der Horror der frühen Medizin" war ein internationaler Erfolg, wurde in 15 Sprachen übersetzt und stand 19 Wochen lang auf der SPIEGEL-Bestsellerliste. Mit ihrem neuen Hörbuch entführt uns die Autorin zu den grausigen Anfänge der Schönheitschirurgie: Als Harold Gillies die Verheerungen des Ersten Weltkriegs mit eigenen Augen sieht, ist er schockiert. Zu viele junge Männer werden nach nur einem falschen Augenblick ihrem Schicksal überlassen: für immer entstellt, für immer Monster in den Augen der Gesellschaft.

¿Por qué cuando un hombre acude con dolor torácico a urgencias se le somete inmediatamente a un electrocardiograma y cuando es una mujer quien presenta idénticos síntomas se le da un ansiolítico? ¿Por qué una mujer estresada es tachada de histérica y en cambio el hombre padece con toda probabilidad el peso de la responsabilidad? ¿Por qué a las mujeres se les exige una perfección física imposible de alcanzar y un hombre con canas y curva de la felicidad es, sencillamente, un madurito interesante? ¿Por qué las mujeres continúan siendo invisibles para la medicina?

For much of recorded history, people considered the heart to be the most important organ in the body. In cultures around the world, the heart—not the brain—was believed to be the location of intelligence, memory, emotion, and the soul. Over time, views on the purpose of the heart have transformed. Modern medicine and science dismissed what was once the king of the organs as a mere blood pump subservient to the brain, yet the heart remains a potent symbol of love and health and an important part of our cultural iconography.