The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (The Norton History of Science)

Description

To combine enormous knowledge with a delightful style and a highly idiosyncratic point of view is Roy Porter s special gift, and it makes [this] book . . . alive and fascinating and provocative on every page.?Oliver Sacks, M.D.Hailed as "a remarkable achievement" ( Boston Sunday Globe) and as "a triumph: simultaneously entertaining and instructive, witty and thought-provoking . . . a splendid and thoroughly engrossing book" ( Los Angeles Times), Roy Porter s charting of the history of medicine affords us an opportunity as never before to assess its culture and science and its costs and benefits to mankind. Porter explores medicine s evolution against the backdrop of the wider religious, scientific, philosophical, and political beliefs of the culture in which it develops, covering ground from the diseases of the hunter-gatherers to today s threat of AIDS and ebola, from the clearly defined conviction of the Hippocratic oath to the muddy ethical dilemmas of modern-day medicine. Offering up a treasure trove of historical surprises along the way, this book "has instantly become the standard single-volume work in its field" ( The Lancet). "The author s perceptiveness is, as usual, scalpel-sharp; his manner genially bedside; his erudition invigorating." - Simon Schama 24 pages of b/w illustrations