The Medical Book: From Witch Doctors to Robot Surgeons, 250 Milestones in the History of Medicine (Sterling Milestones)

Following his hugely successful The Math Book and The Physics Book, Clifford Pickover now chronicles the advancement of medicine in 250 entertaining, illustrated landmark events. Touching on such diverse subspecialties as genetics, pharmacology, neurology, sexology, and immunology, Pickover intersperses "obvious" historical milestones--the Hippocratic Oath, general anesthesia, the Human Genome Project--with unexpected and intriguing topics like "truth serum," the use of cocaine in eye surgery, and face transplants.

Pickover, a prolific writer and scientist, has selected 250 milestones he believes represent the most important advances in the history of medicine. This book is organized chronologically, starting with entries such as Witch doctor, Urinalysis, and Trepanation and ending with Human cloning. Each entry is just a few paragraphs on one page, with a photo or illustration on the facing page. The illustrations and photographs bring a vivid look at the people, cellular structures, and medical treatment, past and present, and add an extra dimension to the text. There is a brief bibliography for each entry located at the back of the book. A thorough index can lead a browser directly to a particular procedure, person, or topic. Cross-references appear at the end of each article to encouragement jumping around in the book, much as a reader on the Internet would surf through brief articles on several topics. This is the third in a series of books, the other two being The Math Book (2010) and The Physics Book (2011), from Pickover. The book succeeds in making the names, events, and procedures of medical history interesting to general readers. This is not a reference book per se but a work to spur the interests of young readers or to provide a brief history into varied medical research, personalities, illnesses, and treatments. There is a great deal of basic medical history to be learned here—whether the topic is cryonics, William Halsted, or sickle-cell anemia, there is solid information for any general reader, from teens to seniors. Recommended for most public libraries. --Steve Stratton

Review

"The writing is lively and the topics are varied . . . [Pickover] achieves his goals, and his brevity and breezy style should appeal to readers used to accessing information quickly on the Internet but who are still interested in picking up a book." --Library Journal

Product details

• Series: Sterling Milestones
• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Sterling; 1 edition (September 4, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781402785856
• ISBN-13: 978-1402785856
• ASIN: 1402785852
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds