Medicine

Published April 2020. Starting with an account of the war on smallpox, from Jenner’s experiments with cowpox in 1796 to the surveillance-based campaign that eradicated the disease by 1977, the health journalist Meera Senthilingam discusses topics including the political dimension of epidemics, anti-vaccination movements, and crossover infection, while describing the epidemiological battles against diseases, whether ancient afflictions such as leprosy, TB and Guinea worm, or the present Covid-19 pandemic. From the Hot Science series.

Opened in 2019, the Wellcome Galleries at the Science Museum, London, bring together the personal collection of Henry Wellcome and the Museum’s own medical holdings to provide the world’s most extensive display of the history of medicine. Arranged in ten chapters that reflect the interests of the curators, the book covers topics including protheses, military medicine, iron lungs and psychiatry, and illustrates artefacts as diverse as moles’ feet amulets (to ward off cramp) and a 21st century athlete’s running blade.

In early modern England, tiny worms were thought to cause tooth cavities, jaundice was a disease rather than a symptom, and those unlucky enough to become ill could find themselves subjected to 'cures' such as skin blistering and bloodletting. Drawing on contemporary sources including physicians' and apothecaries' notes, medical treatises and personal journals, this book explores how doctors dealt with common complaints and how sufferers responded to diseases and their treatment.

John J Ross MD approaches the topic of writers and disease from a medical perspective, 'diagnosing the medical groans and last gasps of ten great writers': Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, the Brontës, Hawthorne, Melville, Yeats, Jack London, James Joyce and Orwell.

Selling the ‘cure-alls’ he made by bottling leftover cooking grease in the kitchen of his parents' Cornish pub set Thomas Holloway on the road to becoming one of the richest self-made men in Victorian England. Here the author (a distant cousin) explores the rise and fall of his patent medicine empire and reveals how he used his millions to build the enormous Gothic college that still bears his name.

From 'love-madness' and the power of St John the Baptist's severed head, to 'wilfully impractical' shoes with long, pointed toes, Jack Hartnell examines the spiritual and intellectual significance of bodies and how parts of the body – from head to foot – were understood and treated in the Middle Ages. ‘Born, bathed, dressed, loved, cut, bruised, ripped, buried, even resurrected, medieval bodies,' writes Hartnell, 'are a path to understanding the very essence of everyday life in the past.’

In this cultural history of insanity, from the Bible to modern medicine, Professor Scull argues that we remain far from understanding the roots of madness and that modern psychiatry has much to learn from the responses of past societies. Examining medical, pharmacological, religious and psychological approaches, he explains how madness has been perceived as a frightening challenge to the social fabric, and as a profound influence on the arts.

Part of the Oxford Pain Management Library series of medical handbooks. This volume deals with one of the most common reasons cited by patients seeking medical help, back pain,

Although first published over 50 years ago, Richardson's 'broad outline of the evolution of modern surgery' remains an absorbing account of great surgeons and surgical breakthroughs, written for both professional and general readers. The book covers all the major types of surgery and ranges in date from the discovery of anaesthesia to the first heart transplants, on the verge of modern practice. This new edition includes a great deal of new material, and a much expanded bibliography. Slightly off-mint.

Acute Stroke Care is brought to you by Postscript Books, a long-established mail order bookseller offering a wide and intriguing range of titles at exceptionally low prices

Morrice McCrae presents a detailed portrait of John Pringle (1707–1782), the Physician General to the British Army in the 1740s who was responsible for enormous improvements in hospital management, discipline and standards of care.

The Sobotta Atlas covers human anatomy in detail with almost 2,000 figures, including X-ray, MRI and CT images, endoscopic images, and colour photographs. Designed specifically for medical school courses, the Atlas is organized by body regions in colour-coded chapters with introductory overviews, and it includes a quick reference booklet with tables of muscles, joints and nerves. Each book includes a PIN number that gives access to Sobotta online.

With its profusion of Latin and Greek words, anatomical terminology can be daunting. The authors of this primer therefore take a novel approach, arranging 125 terms under headings – such as ‘architecture’, ‘landscape’ and ‘fabrics’ – to show connections between an organ or structure and the object from which it takes its name. Each term is also illustrated with a pair of drawings highlighting the visual resemblance. Foreword by Prof. Alice Roberts.

This guide for clinicians specialising in the care of older people examines the real problems that occur on a day-to-day basis, covering subjects such as stroke medicine and 9”x7”, 8pp colour plates

Eric R Kandel, recipient of a Nobel Prize for his pioneering research, demonstrates how studies of brain disorders, including autism, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, have improved our understanding of the close connections between neurological and psychiatric illnesses. He discusses the ways in which these findings are not only contributing to the development of effective treatments but are also helping to explain the mysterious origins of consciousness and creativity in the intricate interactions of brain cells.

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Why doesn’t the immune system fight cancer the way it does other diseases? Told through the experiences of patients, doctors and immunotherapy researchers, this is the story of the game-changing scientific discoveries that unleash our natural ability to recognize and defeat cancer.

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