Showing titles in History & Commentary

One hundred years after a milestone medical discovery, Insulin: The Crooked Timber tells the story of how insulin was transformed from what one clinician called "thick brown muck" into the very first drug to be produced using genetic engineering, one which would earn the founders of the US biotech company Genentech a small fortune. Taking the listener on a fascinating journey, starting with the discovery of insulin in the 1920s through to the present day, the book reveals a story of monstrous egos, toxic career rivalries, and a few unsung heroes.

Gab es in der antiken Welt bereits Gehirnchirurgie? Wie sah das Gesundheitssystem im alten Rom und Griechenland aus? Und wie wurden dort kranke Tiere behandelt? Die oft überraschenden Antworten auf solche und viele weitere Fragen gibt Heike Achner in diesem Buch. Ihre Forschung und Recherche über berühmte Ärzte, bahnbrechende Entdeckungen und ungewöhnliche Heilmethoden ergeben ein spannendes Bild der Medizin in der Antike und ihrer Bedeutung für die Menschheit.

When the SARS virus broke out in China in January 2003, Karl Taro Greenfeld was the editor of Time Asia in Hong Kong, just a few miles from the epicenter of the outbreak. After vague, initial reports of terrified Chinese boiling vinegar to "purify" the air, Greenfeld and his staff soon found themselves immersed in the story of a lifetime. Deftly tracking a mysterious viral killer, China Syndrome takes listeners on a gripping ride that blows through the Chinese government's effort to cover up the disease and sounds a clarion call warning of a catastrophe to come.

In The Helpers, journalist Kathy Gilsinan profiles eight individuals on the frontlines of the coronavirus battle: a devoted son caring for his family in the San Francisco Bay Area; a not-quite-retired paramedic from Colorado; an ICU nurse in the Bronx; the CEO of a Seattle-based ventilator company; a vaccine researcher at Moderna in Boston; a young chef and culinary teacher in Louisville, Kentucky; a physician in Chicago; and a funeral home director in Seattle and Los Angeles. These inspiring individual accounts create an unforgettable tapestry of people across the country.

"Voir un lien entre la pollution de l'air, la biodiversité et la covid-19 relève du surréalisme, pas de la science !", affirmait Luc Ferry en mars 2020, accusant les écologistes de "récupération politique". Voilà un philosophe bien mal informé. Car, depuis les années 2000, des centaines de scientifiques tirent la sonnette d'alarme : les activités humaines, en précipitant l'effondrement de la biodiversité, ont créé les conditions d'une "épidémie de pandémies".

*WINNER OF THE 2023 OTTAWA BOOK AWARD* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 TEMPLER MEDAL FOR BEST BOOK* From Canada’s top war historian, a definitive medical history of the Great War, illuminating how the carnage of modern battle gave birth to revolutionary life-saving innovations. It brings to light...

Based on extensive research into the business records of mountain entrepreneurs, country stores, and pharmaceutical companies, Ginseng Diggers: A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia is the first book to unearth the unique relationship between the Appalachian region and the global trade in medicinal plants. Historian Luke Manget expands our understanding of the gathering commons by exploring how and why Appalachia became the nation’s premier purveyor of botanical drugs in the late-nineteenth century.

Despite the fact that African American lineage has given rise to such undeniable talent, intelligence, and genius as that of Dr. Charles Drew, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, and an exhaustive list of many, many others, the proverbial badge of honor in "the white coat" seems to exist as only a mirage of truth until it is achieved. For every budding and current Black doctor seeking guidance, if ever you've wanted to know what it takes to get in, how to stay in, and what it takes to win, consider this the blueprint.

The rest of the world had turned its back on South Africa after a controversial massacre in 1960, but seven years later, a pioneering heart surgeon was able to shine a much more positive light on the country when he performed the world's first major organ transplant. A tale about a truly inspirational man who, motivated through losing a brother to heart failure, was able to make this groundbreaking technology a reality that would go on to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.

When British-born Elizabeth Blackwell earned her medical degree in America in 1849, there was an international outcry. Few at the time would have disagreed with the actress Fanny Kemble's remark - "What, trust a woman doctor - never!"

Published to commemorate Cleveland Clinic’s centennial, To Act as a Unit tells the epic story of the hospital system’s conception and rise to prominence. You’ll meet pioneering researchers and clinicians whose innovations are the basis for today’s advanced medical care - from Dr. F. Mason Sones, whose fortuitous accident with a cigarette proved that coronary angiography was possible, to the surgical team that performs groundbreaking, life-changing face transplants.

Since 2010, it has been possible to determine a person's genetic makeup in a matter of days at an accessible cost for many millions of people. Along with this technological breakthrough there has emerged a movement to use this information to help prospective parents "eliminate preventable genetic disease". As the prospect of systematically excluding the appearance of unwanted mutations in our children comes within reach, David B. Goldstein examines the possible consequences from these types of choices.

Este volumen ofrece un recorrido cronológico por las epidemias que asolaron México desde la época prehispánica hasta nuestros días. Aunque son innumerables las investigaciones acerca de la historia de eventos epidémicos en el país, no existía hasta ahora un volumen compendioso, para un público no especializado y de atractiva lectura sobre la materia.

From 1942 through 1972, American biomedical researchers deliberately infected people with hepatitis. Government-sponsored researchers were attempting to discover the basic features of the disease and the viruses causing it, and to develop interventions that would quell recurring outbreaks. Drawing from extensive archival research and in-person interviews, Sydney Halpern traces the hepatitis program from its origins in World War II through its expansion during the initial Cold War years, to its demise in the early 1970s amid an outcry over research abuse.

This is the incredible story of the scientists who created a coronavirus vaccine in record time. In Longshot, investigative journalist David Heath takes readers inside the small group of scientists whose groundbreaking work was once largely dismissed but whose feat will now eclipse the...

An articulate, compelling history of American battlefield medics.

Based on the film by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, The Mayo Clinic: Faith, Hope, Science chronicles the history of this unique organization, from its roots as an unlikely partnership between a country doctor and a Franciscan order of nuns to its position today as a worldwide model for patient care, research, and education. The book demonstrates how the institution’s remarkable 150-year history continues to inspire the way medicine is practiced there today.

Revolutionary Surgeons offers an integrated picture of surgeons as political and military leaders of the American Revolution.

統合失調症。当事者のリアルな体験談です。「うつを経験しました」とカミングアウトするうつ病の方が増え、時代は心の問題に対してオープンになってきました。

¿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?