The Medical Book: From Witch Doctors to Robot Surgeons, 250 Milestones in the History of Medicine

by Clifford A. Pickover

Overview

Following his hugely successful The Math Book and The Physics Book, Clifford Pickover now chronicles the advancement of medicine in 250 entertaining, illustrated landmark events. Touching on such diverse subspecialties as genetics, pharmacology, neurology, sexology, and immunology, Pickover intersperses “obvious” historical milestones—the Hippocratic Oath, general anesthesia, the Human Genome Project—with unexpected and intriguing topics like “truth serum,” the use of cocaine in eye surgery, and face transplants.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781402785856
Publisher:	Union Square & Co.
Publication date:	09/04/2012
Series:	Union Square & Co. Milestones
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	434,918
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Internationally renowned author Clifford Pickover has published more than 40 books, translated into over a dozen languages. He is an associate editor for several journals and the author of over 200 articles on various subjects. Dr. Pickover received his PhD from Yale Universitys Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. He holds over 80 US patents for inventions dealing with computing technologies and interfaces, and his website, pickover.com, has received millions of visits.

Editorial Reviews

"The writing is lively and the topics are varied  . . .  [Pickover] achieves his goals, and his brevity and breezy style should appeal to readers used to accessing information quickly on the Internet but who are still interested in picking up a book.” —Library Journal

From the Publisher

In this collection of one-page essays on medical advancements with facing illustrations, Pickover (The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics) touches on familiar subjects (allergies) and more esoteric ones (the ancient Chinese medical text Huangdi Neijing) and covers a variety of fields including medical art, techniques, devices old and new, drugs, surgery, and causes of disease. While the book has a roughly chronological arrangement, Pickover makes it clear that he is presenting not a comprehensive history but a selection of milestones, people, and developments that he finds interesting. Most essays include references for further reading. VERDICT The writing is lively and the topics are varied and need not be read in any particular order. Pickover intends only to give a brief glimpse of each subject and writes for a wide audience ranging from students to professionals. He achieves his goals, and his brevity and breezy style should appeal to readers used to accessing information quickly on the Internet but who are still interested in picking up a book.—Dick Maxwell, Porter Adventist Hosp. Lib., Denver

Library Journal