Showing titles in History & Commentary

Bradwel reminds us that the centenary of this apparent "wonder drug" should be no cause for celebration. Insulin often remains inaccessible to those who need it most: elusive prescriptions, uneven availability and sky-high prices result in rationing and desperate do-it-yourself research and development. In the face of bootstraps rhetoric and "Pharma Bro" capitalists, patients across the world are left to fend for themselves. There is a long way to go in the twenty-first century until insulin truly fulfills the extraordinary promises made by its discovery.

It is time for individuals, communities, and healthcare institutions to take action and prioritize the voices and needs of black women in healthcare. By amplifying their voices, promoting diversity in clinical trials, advocating for policy changes, and empowering black women through education, we can work towards a more equitable and inclusive healthcare system.

For much of recorded history, people considered the heart to be the most important organ in the body. In cultures around the world, the heart—not the brain—was believed to be the location of intelligence, memory, emotion, and the soul. Over time, views on the purpose of the heart have transformed. Modern medicine and science dismissed what was once the king of the organs as a mere blood pump subservient to the brain, yet the heart remains a potent symbol of love and health and an important part of our cultural iconography.

On June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, asserting that the Constitution did not confer the right to abortion. This ruling, in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case, was the culmination of a half-century of pro-life activism promoting the idea that fetuses are people and therefore entitled to the rights and protections that the Constitution guarantees. But it was also the product of a much longer history of archaic ideas about the relationship between pregnant people and the fetuses they carry.

In the middle of the second century AD, Rome was at its prosperous and powerful apex. The emperor Marcus Aurelius reigned over a vast territory that stretched from Britain to Egypt. The Roman-made peace, or Pax Romana, seemed to be permanent. Then, apparently out of nowhere, a sudden sickness struck the legions and laid waste to cities, including Rome itself. This fast-spreading disease, known now as the Antonine plague, may have been history’s first pandemic. Soon after its arrival, the Empire began its downward trajectory toward decline and fall.

Откуда можно узнать о чуме и хорее Гентингтона, склерозе и болезни Паркинсона, синдроме Стендаля и загадочной "бери-бери"? Из медицинского справочника заболеваний — скажете вы, и будете неправы, ведь нет лучшего способа найти у себя сотню симптомов страшной заразы, чем неуместное чтение скучных энциклопедий. Но если почитать о болезнях хочется, а становиться ипохондриком — нет? На помощь придут Алексей Паевский и Анна Хоружая — участники проекта "Нейроновости" и соавторы.

У мамы — болит, у соседки — болит, у коллег на работе — тоже болит. Ну и у меня болит, чего же тут странного? Многие свыклись с тем, что головная боль — это часть их жизни. И не воспринимают ее как заболевание, которое можно и нужно лечить. Одна из задач этой книги — объяснить, что если голова болит, то это ненормально, это какое-то заболевание (к счастью, в большинстве случаев неопасное). И что не стоит терпеть эту боль, принимая обезболивающие через день. Можно себе помочь и значительно повысить качество своей жизни другими способами.

Intensive care units and mechanical ventilation are the crucial foundation of modern medical care: without them, the appalling death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic would be even higher. In The Autumn Ghost, Dr. Hannah Wunsch traces the origins of these two innovations back to a polio epidemic in the autumn of 1952. Drawing together testimony from doctors, nurses, medical students, and patients, Wunsch relates a gripping tale of an epidemic that changed the world.

Don't take speech for granted. Kit Roberts Johnson knows what it is like to have a frozen voice. She knows what it is like for others to have their voices silenced, like children with Down Syndrome, or adults with stuttering. She became a speech therapist to help people with communication disorders and discovered over the span of her career that we have all been silenced in some way.

In the midst of the cold and dark in the current practice of medicine there is a glimmer of hope called the soul of medicine - comprehensive, compassionate, patient-clinician interactions focused solely on the needs of the patient - that can warm and enlighten both patients and clinicians. This book consists of essays and poems describing patient-clinician interactions exhibiting the soul of medicine. Though coming from different viewpoints, both the general public and medical personnel can be enlightened from what they read. The general public has the opportunity to witness the lifting of ...

Witches, Midwives, and Nurses examines how women-led healing was delegitimized to make way for patriarchy, capitalism, and the emerging medical industry.

For the crime of falling sick without wealth, Americans today face lawsuits, wage garnishment, home foreclosure, and jail time. Yet who really profits from aggressive medical debt collection? Your Money or Your Life reveals how medical debt collection became a multi-billion-dollar industry and how everyday Americans are made to pay the price. Emergency physician and historian Luke Messac weaves patient stories into a history of law, finance, and medicine to show how debt and debt collection are destroying the foundational trust between doctors and patients at the heart of American healthcare.

¿Qué pasa cuando se traumatiza un cerebro joven? ¿Cómo afecta la mente de un niño el terror, el abuso o la desgracia? El psiquiatra infantil Bruce Perry ha ayudado a muchos a superar horrores inimaginables: niños supervivientes de genocidios o testigos de homicidio, adolescentes secuestrados o víctimas de violencia familiar. Mediante la observación del trauma a través de la lente científica, Perry nos revela la asombrosa capacidad del cerebro para curarse.

"Mientras escribo esto, a lo largo del año 2015, los científicos intentan adelantarse a las próximas pandemias. Nadie es capaz de predecir cuándo una cepa en particular llevará a cabo el salto, si acaso lo hará. Sin embargo, no estamos indefensos ante lo que la evolución pueda tenernos reservado. Contamos con recursos para contrarrestar la expansión de la gripe, como lavarnos las manos. Y los científicos están aprendiendo a fabricar vacunas más efectivas. Al menos, ya no tenemos que mirar hacia las estrellas en busca de protección." — Carl Zimmer

Award-winning New York Times reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr. reflects on twenty-five years of covering pandemics—how governments react to them, how the media covers them, how they are exploited, and what we can do to prepare for the next one....

BEWUSSTSEIN IST ALLES - OHNE BEWUSSTSEIN IST ALLES NICHTS. Dieses Hörbuch führt Sie durch die Geschichte der Medizin, angefangen beim heiligen Tempelschlaf der Antike - wo das Körper - Seele - Geist Prinzip noch vorhanden war - bis hin zum Momentum der Trennung und weiter zu den ganzheitlichen Bestrebungen der heutigen Zeit. Die faszinierendste neue Wissenschaftsdisziplin ist die Psychoneuroimmunologie. Erstmals wird auf dem Sektor der modernen Medizin die geistig-seelische Dimension miteinbezogen und ernsthaft erforscht. Es kann keinen Zweifel mehr geben, dass der Geist auf den Körper einwirkt.

Arthur Conan Doyle was a GP before he became a writer. He uses his medical knowledge widely in the Sherlock Holmes stories. He bases the deductive skills of his hero detective on the diagnostic techniques a GP uses with a patient. He even gives Sherlock a GP sidekick. This all contributes to the enduring popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories, over 130 years after the first story was published.

The birth of psychiatry in the early nineteenth-century fundamentally changed how madness was categorized and understood. A century on, their conceptions of mental illness continue to influence our views today. Beliefs and behavior were divided up into the pathological and the healthy. The influence of religion and the supernatural became significant measures of insanity in individuals, countries, and cultures. Troubled by Faith explores these ideas about the supernatural across society through the prism of medical history.

Mark Gober dives into fundamental beliefs about health and disease. These beliefs are so fundamental, in fact, that most of us probably haven’t thought to question them. For example, do bacteria cause disease, or are they part of the body’s cleanup crew that appears at the scene of an underlying toxicity or injury? Do researchers follow the scientific method when they claim to isolate viruses and show that they cause disease in their hosts? In addition to exploring these essential questions, Gober goes a layer deeper by examining the nature of consciousness.

If you have ever worn a mask against your better judgement, this book is for you. Delve into the science, psychology, and philosophy involved in the worldwide mania for face coverings. Accessible yet profoundly detailed, packed with meticulously gathered information from a diverse range of disciplines, this book earns its place as an invaluable reference in your library. Its wealth of knowledge equips you to challenge prevailing narratives and verify claims independently.