Showing titles in History & Commentary

In this first history of the military ambulance, historian John S. Haller Jr. documents the development of medical technologies for treating and transporting wounded soldiers on the battlefield. More than a history of medical evacuation systems and vehicles, this exhaustively researched and richly illustrated volume tells a fascinating story, giving listeners a unique perspective of the changing nature of warfare in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In 2006, the Wall Street pioneer and philanthropist Ray Chambers flicked through some holiday snapshots taken by a friend and remarked on the placid beauty of a group of sleeping Malawian children. "They're not sleeping," his friend told him. "They're in malarial comas. A few days later, they were all dead." This moment sparked Chambers' determination to coordinate an unprecedented, worldwide effort to eradicate a disease that has haunted humanity since before the advent of medicine.

It’s the business of saving lives. Miracle Medicines goes behind the scenes of the pharmaceutical industry and into the high-security laboratories to tell the stories of the men and women - chemists, physiologists, medical and clinical researchers, engineers - who have chosen to toil for years in the lab in order to transform scientific theories into new lifesaving medicines. You’ll witness the day-to-day labors, victories and defeats of the dedicated professionals who are waging a war against the diseases that still plague mankind.

The average individual is far more likely to die in a car accident than from a communicable disease...yet we are still much more fearful of the epidemic. Even at our most level-headed, the thought of an epidemic can inspire terror. As Philip Alcabes persuasively argues in Dread, our anxieties about epidemics are created not so much by the germ or microbe in question - or the actual risks of contagion - but by the unknown, the undesirable, and the misunderstood.

Doctors on the Edge is the true account of doctors who are faced with wrenching moral dilemmas, thrust upon them uninvited and unexpected. Sometimes complementary and sometimes conflicting, law, medicine, and morality intrude on the daily practice of medicine. In gripping stories that often include life-and-death decisions, doctors maneuver through ambiguities, subjectivity, and the essential principles of medical ethics.

From lockdowns to lockups, viruses to vaccination, the movement of people to the movement of bowels, from rats to cats, and more, The Age of Pandemics chronicles the many facets of the cholera, plague and influenza pandemics, which claimed over 70 million lives between 1817 and 1920, with India...

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated our fragility as a species. Humanity was attacked by a previously unknown virus that spread very rapidly, thanks to a speed of population mobility never before seen in human history. It succeeded in creating the complete upset of the global socioeconomic system. Such an event gives us an important stimulus to reevaluate health in the context of a circular system that encompasses humans and the environment in which we live. The key challenge we face is the discovery of novel paths to crisis resolution.

Cosa significa essere un neurochirurgo? Come ci si sente ad avere in mano le sorti di una persona, mentre ci si apre un varco tra la materia grigia che ne genera i pensieri, i sentimenti e le emozioni? E, se qualcosa va storto, come si convive con le conseguenze? È ciò che scopriremo attraverso questo audiolibro, la confessione sincera e intensa di un famoso neurochirurgo inglese che, alla luce dell'esperienza quarantennale, rievoca le vittorie nelle battaglie combattute al fianco dei pazienti, ma anche le inevitabili sconfitte, gli errori e i fallimenti.

Heinrich Heine durchlebt 1832 in Paris die Zeit der Cholera und berichtet darüber für eine deutsche Zeitung. Zwischen Anteilnahme und Sarkasmus wechselnd beschreibt er des Volkes und der Behörden Umgang mit der Epidemie, dem der des 20sten Jahres im 21. Jahrhundert erschreckend ähnlich sieht.

In der großen Historiensaga kämpft die Ärztin Ricarda gegen Bleichsucht, Diphtherie oder Nervenschwäche. Manche Behandlungsmethode, mit denen Mediziner zur Kaiserzeit Krankheiten zu Leibe rückten, wirkt aus heutiger Sicht ungewöhnlich. Dieses Buch versammelt die Perlen aus jenen Nachschlagewerken, die Helene Sommerfeld inspirierten, und zeigt, vor welchen Problemen speziell weibliche Patienten standen. Die Ratschläge muten abenteuerlich, kurios und skurril an. Und vermitteln unterhaltsam ein lebendiges Bild des medizinischen Wissens einer wichtigen deutschen Epoche.

Una storia francese del XIX secolo su un aspetto fondante della vita: il venire al mondo, la nascita, il nascere. Nella provincia rurale e soprattutto a Parigi si viene guidati in angoli talora ancora presenti e da riscoprire. E attraverso le vite e le opere di Marie-Anne Boivin e di Stéphane Tarnier si ricostruisce un passaggio epocale del modo di nascere: da arte secolare sviluppata nella pratica, tutta al femminile, delle levatrici ai primi apporti della nascente specialità ostetrico-ginecologica, subito rigorosamente difesa dal monopolio della scienza medica maschile.

Coronarie, colesterolo, elettrocardiogramma, stent: cosa indicano questi termini? Conoscere l'infarto significa avere qualche speranza in più di evitarlo o di sopravvivergli più consapevoli, e forse più sorridenti. E trattarlo con ironia significa spogliarlo del suo alone minaccioso. Dai sintomi al primo soccorso, dai fattori di rischio ai farmaci, alla prevenzione, passando per le ansie e gli interrogativi dei familiari, le prassi delle visite di controllo: un vademecum cardiologico utile anche a sostenere lo spirito di chi sa di aver corso un pericolo.

The End of the Beginning is a remarkable history of cancer treatment and the evolution of our understanding of its dynamic interplay with the immune system. Through Michael Kinch’s personal experience as a cancer researcher at Washington University and the head of the oncology program at a leading biotechnology company, we witness the incredible accumulation of breakthrough science and its rapid translation into life-saving technologies that have begun to dramatically increase the quality and quantity of life for cancer patients.

Dreams from My Mother is an inspiring story about childhood, race, identity, family, friendship, hope and what makes us who we are. Ultimately, it is an incredibly moving story of a mother and a daughter separated by society, but united in the dreams they shared for her future.

CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, MD, offers an accessible, data-packed answer to our biggest questions about Covid-19: What have we learned about this pandemic and how can we prepare for—or prevent—the next one? As America’s favorite frontline Covid-19 health journalist, Dr...

Between August 1918 and March 1919, the Spanish influenza spread worldwide, claiming over 25 million lives. In this vivid narrative, Alfred W. Crosby recounts the course of the pandemic during the panic-stricken months of 1918 and 1919, measures its impact on American society, and probes the curious loss of national memory of this cataclysmic event. This edition includes a preface discussing the then-recent outbreaks of diseases, including the Asian flu and the SARS epidemic.

Psychedelic drugs are making a comeback. In the mid-20th century, scientists actively studied the potential of drugs like LSD and psilocybin for treating mental health problems. After a decades-long hiatus, researchers are once again testing how effective these drugs are in relieving symptoms for a wide variety of psychiatric conditions, from depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder to posttraumatic stress disorder and substance addiction.

In Religion and Medicine, Dr. Jeff Levin outlines this longstanding history and the multifaceted interconnections between these two institutions. The first book to cover the full breadth of this subject, it documents religion-medicine alliances across religious traditions, throughout the world, and over the course of history. Levin summarizes a wide range of material in the most comprehensive introduction to this emerging field of scholarship to date.

The steady beating back of infant and child mortality is one of our greatest human achievements. Interweaving her own experiences as a medical student and doctor, Perri Klass pays tribute to groundbreaking women doctors like Rebecca Lee Crumpler, Mary Putnam Jacobi, and Josephine Baker, and to the nurses, public health advocates, and scientists who brought new approaches and scientific ideas about sanitation and vaccination to families.

Who is considered most at risk for diabetes, and why? In this thorough, engaging book, historian Arleen Tuchman examines and critiques how these questions have been answered by both the public and medical communities for over a century in the United States. Beginning in the late 19th century, Tuchman describes how at different times Jews, middle-class whites, American Indians, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans have been labeled most at risk for developing diabetes, and that such claims have reflected and perpetuated troubling assumptions about race, ethnicity, and class.