Medical History category: 1391 books

Fair Mile was more than just a psychiatric hospital; it was an example of a nationwide network of "pauper lunatic asylums," born of responsible Victorian legislation and compassion for the disadvantaged. It was a secure home to many of its patients and staff, and the community within its...

How the Victorians struggled to overcome diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and scarlet fever in their cities This is the fascinating story of how a small group of dedicated individuals fought opposition from politicians, taxpayers, and often their own colleagues to overcome disease in overwhelming...

Essence and emblem of life--feared, revered, mythologized, and used in magic and medicine from earliest times--human blood is now the center of a huge, secretive, and often dangerous worldwide commerce. It is a commerce whose impact upon humanity rivals that of any other business--millions of lives...

So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of Bellevue tells you what you need to know—before or after you read David Oshinsky’s book. Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader. This...

Between the years 1918 and1920, influenza raged around the globe in the worst pandemic in recorded history, killing at least fifty million people, more than half a million of them Americans. Yet despite the devastation, this catastrophic event seems but a forgotten moment in our nation's past. American...

This book explores the history of natural disasters in the Ottoman Empire and the responses to them on the state, communal, and individual levels. Yaron Ayalon argues that religious boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims were far less significant in Ottoman society than commonly believed. Furthermore,...

Americans' health improved dramatically over the twentieth century. Public health programs for disease and injury prevention were responsible for much of this advance. Over the century, America's public health system grew dramatically, employing science and political authority in response to an increasing...

Its landscaped ground, chosen by Frederick Law Olmsted and dotted with Tudor mansions, could belong to a New England prep school. There are no fences, no guards, no locked gates. But McLean Hospital is a mental institution-one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious in America. McLean...

Why is the brain divided? The difference between right and left hemispheres has been puzzled over for centuries. In a book of unprecedented scope, Iain McGilchrist draws on a vast body of recent brain research, illustrated with case histories, to reveal that the difference is profound—not just this...

More people today report feeling anxious than ever before—even while living in relatively safe and prosperous modern societies. Almost one in five people experiences an anxiety disorder each year, and more than a quarter of the population admits to an anxiety condition at some point in their lives....

An eye-opening and heroic story of pioneering heart surgeons, structured around eleven operations. For thousands of years the human heart remained the deepest of mysteries; both home to the soul and an organ too complex to touch, let alone operate on. Then, in the late nineteenth century,...

**For readers of Atul Gawande, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Henry Marsh, a riveting, gorgeously written biography of one of history's most fascinating and confounding diseases--Alzheimer's--from its discovery more than 100 years ago to today's race towards a cure. SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY...

In this intimate history of the extraordinary Black Plague pandemic that swept through the British Isles in 1665, Evelyn Lord focuses on the plague’s effects on smaller towns, where every death was a singular blow affecting the entire community. Lord’s fascinating reconstruction of life during plague...

Maine nurses have served tirelessly as caregivers and partners in healing at home and abroad, from hospitals to battlefields. The Division of Public Health Nursing and Child Hygiene was established in 1920 to combat high rates of infant mortality in Washington and Aroostook Counties. During the Vietnam...