Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine

by RoyPorter (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2003

  $12.26

  Mankind's battle to stay alive is the greatest of all subjects. This brief, witty and unusual book by Britain's greatest medical historian compresses into a tiny span a lifetime spent thinking about millennia of human ingenuity in the quest to cheat death. Each chapter sums up one of these battlefields (surgery, doctors, disease, hospitals, laboratories and the human body) in a way that is both frightening and elating. Startlingly illustrated, A Short History of Medicine is the ideal present for anyone who is keenly aware of their own mortality and wants to do something about it. It is also a wonderful memorial to one of Penguin's greatest historians.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $4.18

  Mankind's battle to stay alive and healthy for as long as possible is our oldest, most universal and formidable struggle. This witty and often shocking book explores the ingenious ways in which we have fought disease over the ages in our quest for immortality. Roy Porter examines the changing role of doctors, from ancient healers, apothecaries and blood-letters to today's professionals; looks at the drugs we have used, from Ayurvedic remedies to the launch of Viagra in 1998; follows the huge advances in surgery, from amputations performed by barbers without anaesthetic to today's sophisticated transplants; and shows how hospitals have been transformed from Christian places of convalescence to modern medical powerhouses. Porter concludes that, while many people lead longer and healthier lives in the 21st century, our worries about illness and our mistrust of medics seem to be greater than ever.