Elegantly constructed book... (George Rousseau, TLS )
The stories they tell are often fascinating and alarming - pitched somewhere between farce, genius, horror and a lab report. (The Scotsman )
These four 'biographies' of diseases go far beyond questions of biology or medical practice; they talk politics, sex and class, faith. (The Scotsman )
The notion of an ailment having a birth, a lifespan, and - ideally - a demise...is an illuminating and useful concept. (Wendy Moore, British Medical Journal )
Andrew Scull's exploration...provides an utterly enthralling study of medical ideology and sociology. (Wendy Moore, British Medical Journal )
Should be required reading for all students of medicine. (Wendy Moore, British Medical Journal )
By the time Rock Hudson's death in 1985 alerted all America to the danger of the AIDS epidemic, the disease had spread across the nation, killing thousands of people and emerging as the greatest health crisis of the 20th century. America faced a troubling question: What happened? How was this epidemic allowed to spread so far before it was taken seriously? In answering these questions, Shilts weaves weaves the disparate threads into a coherent story, pinning down every evasion and contradiction at the highest levels of the medical, political, and media establishments.
Shilts shows that the epidemic spread wildly because the federal government put budget ahead of the nation's welfare; health authorities placed political expediency before the public health; and scientists were often more concerned with international prestige than saving lives. Against this backdrop, Shilts tells the heroic stories of individuals in science and politics, public health and the gay community, who struggled to alert the nation to the enormity of the danger it faced. And the Band Played On is both a tribute to these heroic people and a stinging indictment of the institutions that failed the nation so badly.
The United States enjoys an established and essentially unchallenged role in the field of surgery. In this sweeping history of American surgical practice, renowned surgeon Seymour I Schwartz, MD, describes how surgery in this country advanced from the comparatively crude practices of pioneering physicians in the pre-Columbian and colonial eras to its current level of preeminence in scientific surgery today. Of interest to the layperson and professional alike, Dr. Schwartz's engrossing narrative brings to life the personalities and sometimes dramatic conflicts that led to breakthrough contributions. In the nineteenth century, for example, the many colorful characters and surgical innovations included: a surgeon in a small Kentucky community who successfully removed a huge tumor from a woman's abdomen without anesthesia; the three individuals who each laid claim to the development of ether anesthesia; and the first successful gallbladder operation. Turning to the twentieth century, Dr. Schwartz highlights the evolution of vascular surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, and organ transplantation. Many great innovators made crucial contributions, including the Nobel Prize winners Alexis Carrel, who developed a method to sew vessels together, and Joseph Murray, who worked on kidney transplantation in Boston. Complete with an array of intriguing illustrations, this definitive work will captivate general readers with its engaging narrative and will inform medical professionals through its solid historical research and medical expertise.
