Medical Firsts : From Hippocrates to the Human Genome

Rating:
Summary: Amazing and fascinating stories of how healthcare developed
Review: Any health care consumer -- or provider -- should be fascinated by these stories of how the health care we know to day came to be. It was amazing to me to read how much the ancients knew about the human body, and how accurately, and then how "medicine" descended into the miasma of the Middle Ages for over a thousand years before painstakingly, and with great difficulty, enduring personal animosity, crawling back to what the ancients knew, and beyond to what medical science knows today.

All related in well-told stories about real people, described warts and all. Some of those people I had never heard about before but even the others of whom I had read elsewhere came alive as people, with new information and more background.

I heartily recommend this book for anyone with an interest in healthcare, or in history. Not only informative, but very enjoyable reading.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing and fascinating stories of how healthcare developed
Review: Any health care consumer -- or provider -- should be fascinated by these stories of how the health care we know to day came to be. It was amazing to me to read how much the ancients knew about the human body, and how accurately, and then how "medicine" descended into the miasma of the Middle Ages for over a thousand years before painstakingly, and with great difficulty, enduring personal animosity, crawling back to what the ancients knew, and beyond to what medical science knows today.

All related in well-told stories about real people, described warts and all. Some of those people I had never heard about before but even the others of whom I had read elsewhere came alive as people, with new information and more background.

I heartily recommend this book for anyone with an interest in healthcare, or in history. Not only informative, but very enjoyable reading.

Rating:
Summary: Don't be afraid!!!
Review: As a lay person, I cautiously picked up Medical Firsts thinking I wouldn't understand a word. Surprise, surprise. I not only understood, but was blown away by what I didn't know. Adler made the lives and works of medical pioneers who laid the ground work for what we all take for granted come alive for me. Since I've actively repelled anything remotely connected to science all my life, almost every page had a "wow" factor.

The short chapters made it a lot more readable for me as a science challenged reader. With so much new info, I was grateful to pause after each one to appreciate the enormity of the discovery. I developed a reverence and gratituide to those who overcame enormous social barriers and fought, amazingly, the same hurdles that impede progress today - fear of change, fear of the unknown.

Thanks to Adler, I just might tiptoe back into new bookstore aisles. Carol Wiseman, author of A Patchwork of Comforts: Small Pleasures for Peace of Mind

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Summary: A physician from San Francisco Bay writes:
Review: I highly recommend this book, especially to those who practice or plan to practice in the field of medicine. Even for non-physicians, I think reading Dr. Adler's "Medical Firsts" will be a very enriching and worthwhile experience. The author has created an educational yet highly entertaining work in which he has chosen to write about specific physician/scientists throughout history who he feels were the most visionary and heroic in their contributions to the advancement of Western Medicine. In reading the book, I feel as if I have been taken on a unique journey through medical hisotry, which at times appears like a complex maze. Along the way, the author describes some tragic blind alleys where several of these physician/scientists who had come forth with potentially life saving discoveries were shunned and considered to be heretics because they dared to challenge the status quo with their scientific apoproach to medical research and practice.

In each concise and well-written chapter, the author's respect and admiration for the enlightened scientific method practiced by these venerable physician researchers comes through vividly. I found the author's message very inspiring: if we are able to trust and support an unbiased and scientific approach to the alleviation of suffering and disease, we may someday fulfill the great promise of these astounding medical advances to offer superior quality of life for all of humanity.

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Summary: Serendipitous
Review: It is great to have stories about medicine that I wouldn't have known even if I had stayed awake in all those pre-med courses. I enjoyed this book so much I had to give it away to an internist who found he could learn something new as well.

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Summary: Adler's Second Book on Firsts!
Review: Medical Firsts is a well written, interesting, and informative account of preeminent medical achievements over the past 2500 years. It is well worth reading whether you are a medical professional or simply have a curious mind. Robert Adler's style of writing is easy to follow, entertaining, and intelligent. This book is organized into twenty-eight bite-sized chapters, each of which is thoroughly researched and very fascinating on its own. After reading Robert Adler's first great book, Science Firsts, I had very high expectations. I was certainly not disappointed and you won't be either. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Adler's Second Book on Firsts!
Review: Medical Firsts is a well written, interesting, and informative account of preeminent medical achievements over the past 2500 years. It is well worth reading whether you are a medical professional or simply have a curious mind. Robert Adler's style of writing is easy to follow, entertaining, and intelligent. This book is organized into twenty-eight bite-sized chapters, each of which is thoroughly researched and very fascinating on its own. After reading Robert Adler's first great book, Science Firsts, I had very high expectations. I was certainly not disappointed and you won't be either. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: A superbly fantastic journey through knowledge and history
Review: Medical Firsts: From Hippocrates To The Human Genome by psychologist and science journalist Robert E. Adler is the amazing story of the evolution of Western medicine as achieved through the lives and work of more than thirty of its greatest practitioners. Woven in storytelling prose for a grand reader's tour through history, Medical Firsts covers from how the Greek physician Hippocrates grounded the foundation of medicine in science and observation to the breakthrough advances and discoveries of modern medical technology. A superbly fantastic journey through knowledge and history alike.