A history of medicine in 50 discoveries

Book 2017

The 5,000-year-old Iceman discovered frozen in the Alps may have treated his gallstones, Lyme disease, and hardening of the arteries with the 61 tattoos that covered his body--most of which matched acupuncture points--and the walnut-sized pieces of fungus he carried on his belt. The herbal medicines chamomile and yarrow have been found on 50,000-year-old teeth, and neatly bored holes in prehistoric skulls show that Neolithic surgeons relieved pre...

Item Details & Discovery

Explore Topics & Themes:

Discoveries in science

Medicine History

Part of a Series:

History in 50

View technical details & catalog information

ISBN:

9780884485322
9780884484004
0884484009

Edition:

First hardcover edition

Description:

xvi, 303 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-278) and index

Contents:

What's a discovery?
The iceman: forensic analysis of a neolithic killing
A parade of ants: magic and folk healing
Massage: rubbing out demons and kinks
Secrets of the dead: ancient Egyptian mummifiers and surgeons
170 BC: sleep therapy at the Temples of Asklepios
AD 200: Galen discovers nerves and humors
900: al-Razi and evidence-based medicine in the Middle Ages
1508: Da Vinci's heart
1600: the Chamberlen family secret
1670: looking through Van Leeuwenhoek's tiny microscopes
1721: fighting smallpox and public opinion in colonial Boston
1747: limeys and the conquest of scurvy
1776: a folk remedy for congestive heart failure
1799: heroic bloodletting, leech mania, and discovering what doesn't work
1816: Rene Laennec invents the stethoscope
1828: cutting the stone
1846: laughing gas
1847: wash your hands
1848: monster soup
1854: cholera and epidemiology
1867: Gregor Mendel and inherited traits
1870: discovering ancient skull surgeries
1881: spontaneous generation and the germ theory of disease
1882: tuberculosis emerges from the miasma
1894: a barrel of snakes and an antitoxin
1896: the discovery of x-rays
18989: a small-game hunter fights bubonic plague
1898: viruses borrow life support from tobacco leaves and humans
1900: Marie Curie's lab glows in the dark
1901: making blood transfusions safe
1905: hormones and endocrinology
1907: Typhoid Mary becomes the world's most notorious cook
1909: Ehrlich's magic bullet and the beginnings of chemotherapy
1922: controlling diabetes
1929: Fleming's dirty dishes give us penicillin
1930: psychosurgery
1939-1955: rat poison for a U.S. president
1944: discovering DNA
1945: a miracle drug in the sewage
1945: saving lives with sausage casings, washing machines, and juice cans
1951: Frankenstein and the heart machines
1967: Baruch Blumberg discovers a cancer-causing virus
1967: the first heart transplant
1972: a magic bullet from Chinese medicines
1978: the first test tube baby
1983: preventing cancers
1998:MMR vaccine, autism, discovery, and fraud
2011: bionic parts
2013: poop therapy for the human microbiome
2016: researching the Zika Virus

LCCN:

2017933730

Control Number:

2625486

Other Authors:

Eaton, Gale, 1947- author

View in Classic Catalog