A very interesting little book, especially the first part about old views of medicine and health (Hippocrates and Galen). We have obviously progressed in some ways but in others the book made me wonder if the less scientific views were not sometimes better for maintaining general health.
This is my 8th book in this series, and my favorite so far, maybe it's because it's the history of my field of study, a personal bias.
it was fun to know how doctors behaved before the age of hospitals, to know about Hippocrates, the man who i'll repeat a version of his oath soon, to learn about galen's humoralism, ibn sina & ibn rushd.
There was once a medical hierarchy, physicians were educated and superior, surgeons on the other hand were inferior craftsmen.
The history of anatomy,the illustrations of Andreas Vesalius that set the standards for the artistic and accurate anatomical text books that i studied
The history of percussion, Auenbrugger discovered it by assessing the amount of wine and beer in casks
The history of auscultation, Laennec was too shy to put his head on the chest of young ladies, so he invented the stethoscope and became an expert in auscultation of tuberculous chests, and eventually died of tuberculosis.
In community medicines manny names were mentioned but "john snow" caught my eye, he proved that cholera was water not air borne.
Louis pasteur didn't just pasteurize milk, he discovered the rabies vaccine
People resisted anesthesia during labour because they believed painful labour was god's punishment for Eve's disobedience.
Ovaries were removed to treat hysteria and painful menstruation! & Bowel segments were removed for constipation!
Medicine, like general science, share a common characteristic with religion insofar as they like to present themselves as ahistorical ; that is, they exist from time immemorial and will continue to exist till the end of universe. This is not untrue for scientific law must be ahistorical if it were to apply universally. The speed of light must always travel at 3.00脳108 m/s regardless 100 years ago or 100 years in future.
When a person begins to investigate the history behind science, it is still true that scientific principle must stay ahistorical . However a person will find the way that science develop is not always inevitable. One interesting example is how the cultural prohibition of dissecting human body leads Galen to derive his ideas of human body from dissecting a pig. With hindsight, we might naively laugh at his stupidity but we are never unsure whether at this given moment, we have similar kind of prohibition that will become the laughing stock of our future generations.
William Bynum presents a good overview of medical history, although there is a tendency to degenerate into a history of who's who as in the latter half of the book, the account is filled with little biographies of the important scientists.
Decent treatment of the subject, in particular liked the lay-out by the author to discuss medicine in the typical arenas the healing profession plays out (doctor-patient, society, the lab etc); for some classics on the history of medicine be sure to check out 's and the critical history by ; .
I fully expected this book to be dull and encyclopedic, just another addition to a series of books published by Very Short Introductions. Instead, I found a dutifully researched, well-written and passionate account of some of the biggest names in medical history. Science and medical authors sometimes get bogged down in the objects that they're focusing on, but Bynum communicates a story of medicine that is entirely social, built by personalities who mostly believed in their own egos over the health of patients. The book's strength is its structure and anyone looking to understand how the Ancient Greeks and the French Revolution contribute to modern medicine should pick up this relatively quick read.
This book would more accurately be called "The History of Western Medicine" as it barely touches on any region outside of Europe. The influence of the Middle East is mentioned in earlier chapters in regard to the preservation of Greek texts, but, other than that, the rest of the world is only mentioned in relation to the spread of Western medicine and how colonialism and globalization affected the development of Western medicine. That said, it is an excellent history of Western medicine.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.