Showing titles in History & Commentary

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 great scientists Louis Pasteur (1822-1893) and Joseph Lister (1827-1912) revolutionized medical practice in the 19th century. Pasteur's discovery of the cause of fermentation formed the basis of modern germ theory while Lister developed antiseptic surgical methods based on that. The book contains a description of the theory, and accounts of their work and experiments.

Winner of the IgNobel Prize in physics and the 2004 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award, Len Fisher showed just how much fun science can be in his enthusiastically praised debut, How to Dunk a Doughnut. In this new work, he reveals that science sometimes takes a path through the ridiculous and the bizarre to discover that Nature often simply does not follow common sense.

This book is here to provide insight into burnout within the medical field, and find potential ways to combat it. In addition, this book is to help motivate individuals and help maintain a supportive culture among medical professionals. This book is a shared perspective from a nurse that has worked as a COVID nurse and travel nurse across the nation. The author wants to show others that it is possible for anyone to share their life stories as well.

In The Beating Heart, Robin Choudhury explores how the heart has been represented over time and across cultures. He investigates the interplay between the heart depictions of successive eras and the prevailing cultural discourse – religious, social, philosophical – of each. In parallel, he considers how the ‘scientific’ understanding of the function of the heart has unfolded over 2,500 years, from the observations of Aristotle, through detailed anatomical descriptions beginning in the Renaissance, to the emergence of experimental physiology in the 17th century.

Causes of death have changed irrevocably across time. In the course of a few centuries we have gone from a world where disease or violence were likely to strike anyone at any age and where famine could be just one bad harvest away, to one where excess food is more of a problem than a lack of it. Why is this? This Mortal Coil explains why we died in the past, the reasons we die now and how causes of death are about to profoundly change.

Investigative journalist Zuckerman takes us inside the top-secret laboratories, corporate clashes and high-stakes government negotiations that led to effective shots. Deeply reported and endlessly gripping, this is a dazzling blow-by-blow chronicle of the most consequential scientific breakthrough of our time. It's a story of courage, genius and heroism. It's also a tale of heated rivalries, unbridled ambitions, crippling insecurities and unexpected drama. A Shot to Save the World is the story of how science saved the world.

A History of the Present Illness takes listeners into overlooked lives in the neighborhoods, hospitals, and nursing homes of San Francisco, offering a deeply humane and incisive portrait of health and illness in American today....In the tradition of Oliver Sacks and Abraham Verghese, Aronson's writing is based on personal experience and addresses topics of current social relevance. Masterfully told, A History of the Present Illness explores the role of stories in medicine and creates a world pulsating with life, speaking truths about what makes us human.

JAK UPÓR I TROCHĘ SZCZĘŚCIA ZMIENIŁY ŚWIAT Czy wiesz, że: miniaturowy odłamek plastiku w oku pilota RAF-u sprawił, że dziś używamy tego materiału do produkcji sztucznych soczewek; tytanowa komora, która za nic nie dawała usunąć się z kości królika, doprowadziła do powstania implantów dentystycznych; viagrę zawdzięczamy grupie chemików pracujących nad nowym lekiem mającym przynieść ulgę cierpiącym z powodu dusznicy bolesnej; pięć wyjątkowo ciepłych tygodni 1928 roku pomogło Alexandrowi Flemingowi w odkryciu penicyliny.

How are illnesses diagnosed? When did the first successful organ transplant take place? Why are some pandemics so deadly? This audiobook explores big questions like these, explaining the breakthroughs and discoveries that have shaped our modern-day understanding of medicine and helped us protect and promote our health. The Medicine Book cuts through the jargon and is packed with pithy explanations of the most important milestones in medical history to untangle knotty concepts.

The tale of the American volunteer ambulance drivers of the First World War is one of gallantry amid gore, manners amid madness. Until now this stirring example of wartime courage has been recounted only in fragments. Arlen J. Hansen's Gentlemen Volunteers brings to life the entire story of the men - and women - who formed the first ambulance corps, and who went on to redefine American culture.

The 1918 Influenza pandemic moved around the world in three waves, infecting up to 500 million people and causing over 40 million deaths. In areas that ended the pandemic with lower mortality rates than average, several things tended to be present. These include low rates of poverty, widespread access to healthcare, well-funded and widespread public health measures, and well-managed record-keeping.

The Immune Mystery follows doctor and researcher Anita Kåss' quest to solve the autoimmune puzzle, beginning with the premature death of her mother, who developed rheumatoid arthritis shortly after giving birth to Anita. As a child, Anita vowed to study the illness and one day find a cure. Becoming a respected doctor and researcher, Anita devoted herself to studying autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and multiple sclerosis. A compelling blend of incredible determination and cutting-edge science, this book changes the way we think about autoimmune diseases.

O século XIX trouxe avanços tecnológicos e industriais em diversas áreas. Uma, porém, ficou para trás: a Medicina. Ao redor do planeta, a mortalidade infantil alcançava taxas altíssimas e a expectativa de vida era baixa. Doenças diversas castigavam a população. Mas o cenário mudou ao longo do século XX. Este audiolivro narra, de forma deliciosa, como médicos e cientistas lançavam mão de criatividade, coragem e raciocínio lógico para tornar os progressos possíveis.

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.

Anschaulich und lebensnah erzählt Ronald D. Gerste von den umwälzenden Ereignissen zwischen 1840 und 1914, in der die Medizin ungeahnte Fortschritte machte. Mit der Entdeckung der Antisepsis und der Entwicklung der Anästhesie und der Röntgenstrahlung wurden Heilungserfolge möglich, an die bisher nicht zu denken war. Forscher, Ärzte und Mediziner von Robert Koch bis Wilhelm C. Röntgen begründeten die moderne Medizin. Ein packendes Porträt einer entfesselten Epoche!

How to Survive a Plague by David France is the riveting, powerful and profoundly moving story of the AIDS epidemic and the grass-roots movement of activists, many of them facing their own life-or-death struggles, who grabbed the reins of scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease.

Doctors at War is a candid account of a trauma surgical team based, for a tour of duty, at a field hospital in Helmand, Afghanistan. Mark de Rond tells of the highs and lows of surgical life in hard-hitting detail, bringing to life a morally ambiguous world in which good people face impossible choices and in which routines designed to normalize experience have the unintended effect of highlighting war’s absurdity. With stories that are at once comical and tragic, de Rond captures the surreal experience of being a doctor at war.

For years after graduating from medical school, Dr. Clifton K. Meador assumed that symptoms of the body, when obviously not imaginary, indicate a disease of the body - something to be treated with drugs, surgery, or other traditional means. But, over several decades, as he saw patients with clear symptoms but no discernible disease, he concluded that his own assumptions were too narrow and, indeed, that the underlying basis for much of clinical medicine was severely limited.

An articulate, compelling history of American battlefield medics.