This introduction to the history of medicine begins with the evolution of infectious diseases at the end of the last ice age. It describes the origin of science and medicine in ancient civilizations, including China and India. The first third of the book covers the early period that is considered the “classical” history of medicine.

The remainder describes the evolution of modern medicine and surgery up to the present. The final chapter is a history of medical economics and explains the origin of health insurance, HMOs and medical malpractice lawsuits, subjects explained nowhere else in the medical school curriculum.

University of Southern California professor Dr. Michael T. Kennedy has the all too rare gift of writing well which he combines with a passion for detail so that this history is packed with the bizarre, the fascinating, the arcane, and the all too often revolting facts of medical delusion, malpractice, and triumph that have characterized the long and tortured history of the healing arts.

This is a history not only of medicine and disease, but of science as well. The emphasis is on twentieth century developments, which is as it should be since so much has happened in recent times. This is not to say that the more distant past is neglected. Kennedy starts with the pre-history and follows the quest for health through Greek and Roman times to “The Rise of Islam and Arabic Medicine” (Chapter 5) with excursions into ayurvedic medicine (from India) and the traditional Chinese practices from antiquity. He even looks at European health, or the lack thereof, during the Dark and Middle Ages before the rise of science. When he gets to the modern or nearly modern era, Kennedy organizes less by chronology and more by subject matter. Some of the later chapters are about “Cardiac Surgery”, “Transplantation”, “Psychiatry,” etc.

Dr. Kennedy shows how various ideas and methods were developed, how they stemmed from, or were in contrast to, earlier methods; and he highlights the personalities of the practitioners as he describes what they did or discovered. He also focuses on patients and their stories.

Related Books:

1. Pocket Medicine: The Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of Internal Medicine
2. The Medicine Box – By Shan-Tung Hsu
3. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals – By Michael Pollan
4. Why Evolution Is True – By Jerry A. Coyne
5. The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals – By Barbara W. Ellis
6. Law of Attraction: The Science of Attracting More of What You Want and Less of What You Don’t – By Michael J. Losier
7. East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History : Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Anne Walthall, James Palais
8. Modern Architecture (Oxford History of Art) : Alan Colquhoun