The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity [Hardcover]
Author: Roy Porter | Language: English | ISBN: 0393046346 | Format: PDF, EPUB
The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity
Posts about Download The Book The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity [Hardcover] from with Mediafire Link Download Link
Posts about Download The Book The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity [Hardcover] from with Mediafire Link Download Link
In a rare blend of erudition and entertainment, Roy Porter charts the revolutionary history of medicine, our most beneficial science. Throughout history medicine has advanced ever faster, and with it a capacity not just to overcome sickness, but to transform the nature of life itself. From the diseases of the hunter-gatherers to today's threat of AIDS and ebola, from the clearly defined conviction of the Hippocratic oath to the muddy ethical dilemmas of modern-day medicine, this book affords us an opportunity as never before to assess the culture and science of medicine and its costs and benefits to mankind. Porter explores medicine's evolution against the backdrop of the wider religious, scientific, philosophical, and political beliefs of the culture in which it develops, and shows how our need to understand where diseases come from and what we can do to control them has--perhaps above all else--inspired developments in medicine through the ages. Along the way the book offers up a treasure trove of historical surprises, such as an ancient Egyptian treatment for incipient baldness, a mysterious epidemic that devastated Athens and brought an end to its domination, and the role of the lemon in defeating Napoleon. This book promises to be the standard single-volume work on its subject for years to come.
Download latest books on mediafire and other links compilation The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity [Hardcover] - Hardcover: 800 pages
- Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (April 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393046346
- ISBN-13: 978-0393046342
- Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.7 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #467,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
This is the second review of three I have done of socio-medical histories written of edited by Roy Porter (you can read the others on my reivew page). I read and compared this to The "Cambridge Illustrated History: Medicine", and "Gout, the Patrician Maladay". I thought this was the best approach as people might be like me, looking for a reference work to buy and trying to toss up between which one to get and what the advantages and disadvantages of one over another.
In terms of content I think this is the more comprehensive of the two general reference works. It is over twice the length of Cambridge (over 800 pages in this one compared to not quite 400). It also doesn't have pages taken up with illustrations as Cambridge does. That is probably the thing I like least about this book, there are only three small sections in the middle with some black and white pictures reproduced - I think on comparison I do prefer the slightly more expensive version of having pictures on the pages I am reading for this kind of reference work.
The book is divided into 22 chapters which follow the rise of Western medicine more or less chronologically. There are also chapters included on Chinese and Indian Medicine, but expect the emphasis to be European in both history and development. Each chapter is divided into specific topics which are discussed a structure I quite enjoyed as it broke up the text and made it more readable.
I looked up some specific subjects to compare this with the Cambrige work and in each case (among them Purperal fever, Galen, Resurrectionists) this book had far more detailed and comprehensive explanations, often citing broad statistics. However writing the a social and medical history of mankind is difficult to do full justice even in 800-some pages.
No comments:
Post a Comment