Doctors: The Illustrated History of Medical Pioneers Review

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(More customer reviews)Sherwin Nuland's writings like How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter, How We Live, The Mysteries Within: A Surgeon Explores Myth, Medicine, and the Human Body and particularly, Doctors: The Biography of Medicine have set a very high standard for medical non-fiction and paticularly for popular books on the history of medicine. This new book does not bring much new information forward that cannot be found in "Doctors" but the lavish illustrations are very nice and include many that I've never seen before.
The book chronologically presents the great personalities, geniuses, egos, and spectacularly disfunctional people who have brought us Western medicine. Dr. Nuland is definitely a champion of viewing medical history as a history of progressing from ignorance to enlightenment but he is very cognizant to put each medical discovery in the context of its time and not to judge by modern standards of scientific accuracy. Rather, he traces how the use of experiment and observation have been key to the development of effective healing throughout the ages. When discussing Galen and Vesalius it is difficult for the reader not to echo his irritation as he describes the fourteen centuries of blind obedience to authority before Vesalius wrote the "Fabrica".
While this topic may sound very dry and academic, I find his writing to be easily-paced and readable. This book could be viewed as a companion piece to "Doctors" but it stands well on its own primarily due to the illustrations, which are missing entirely from "Doctors."

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National Book Award-winner and surgeon Sherwin B. Nuland tells the extraordinary story of the development of modern medicine through compelling studies of the great innovators and pioneers. Artfully selected illustrations bring the history of medicine to life as never before. This brilliant collection of life portraits of physicianscientists shows how their deeds and determination paved the way for future breakthroughs in medicine. Ranging from the legendary father of medicine, Hippocrates, to Helen Taussig, the founder of pediatric cardiology, the book is filled with the spirit of ideas and the thrill of discovery. Other medical pioneers profiled include Galen, Andreas Vesalius, Ambroise Paré, William Harvey, Giovanni Morgagni, John Hunter, René Laennec, Ignac Semmelweis, Rudolf Virchow, Joseph Lister, and William Stewart Halsted. Artwork and photography are married to Nuland's vivid narrative here for the first time, turning a "reading" book by a bestselling author into a treasured gift book for medical professionals and science enthusiasts.

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