Product Description

'Yet another compulsively readable, astonishingly encyclopaedic book from Roy Porter!his best to date: an epic, one-volume narrative history of man's struggle with the infirmities of his body, from Aesculapius to AIDS.' SIMON SCHAMA 'Whether you are interested in the advent of the stethoscope, the history of yellow fever, the bubonic plague or, closer to home, coronary heart disease, the feminist influence on medicine, drug abuse, childbearing or cancer, this book provides the historic background to these and other medical questions! The Greatest Benefit to Mankind is a first-class introduction to medical history. Like a well constructed broadsheet leader, it excites thought and discussion, as well as providing many answers.' THOMAS STUTTAFORD, The Times Medicine advances ever faster, and with it a capacity not just to overcome sickness, but to transform the very nature of life. Starting in antiquity, Roy Porter's titanic history examines the traditions of both East and West to chart how this revolution came about and how life for human beings in some parts of the world has ceased to be 'nasty, brutish and short'. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind becomes from the moment of publication the standard work on its subject. It is also a magnificent entertainment and a delight to read.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16211 in Books
• Published on: 1999-02-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 848 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Samuel Johnson once called the medical profession "the greatest benefit to mankind." In the 20th century, the quality of that benefit has improved more and more rapidly than at any other comparable time in history. With all the capabilities of modern medicine's practitioners, however, we as a people are as worried about our health as ever.

Roy Porter, a social historian of medicine at London's Wellcome Institute, has written a dauntingly thick history of how medical thinking and practice has risen to the challenges of disease through the centuries. But delve into its pages and you'll find one marvellous piece of history after another. The obvious highlights are touched upon--Hippocrates introduces his oath, Pasteur homogenises, Jonas Salk produces the polio vaccine and so on--but there's also Dr. Francis Willis' curing of the madness of King George III, W.T.G. Morton's aggressive use of ether in surgery and research on digestion conducted using a man with a stomach fistula (if you don't know what that means, you may not want to know). Porter is straightforward about his deliberate focus on Western medical traditions, citing their predominant influence on global medicine, and with The Greatest Benefit to Mankind he has produced a volume worthy of that tradition's legacy.

Review
'A monumental work! magnificent.' KENAN MALIK, Independent on Sunday 'Only the unique artistry of Roy Porter could have created this panoramic and perfectly magnificent intellectual history of medicine. It makes no difference whether one reads it for its wisdom, insight, inimitable perspective, or simply for its plenitude of information -- this is the book that delivers it all.' SHERWIN B. NULAND

About the Author
Roy Porter is Professor of the Social History of Medicine at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Science. He is the editor of the Fontana History of Science series, and the author of over sixty-five books, including, most recently, the acclaimed bestseller, London: A Social History. His book on the history of madness in England, Mind-Forg'd Manacles, won the Leo Gershoy Prize.

Customer Reviews

Dual purpose book well written interesting read for anyone.
I have had this book since it was first published and it has been worth it's weight (considerable) in gold. I was nursing at the time so obviously had an interest in the medical side. However, this is an excellant history book and of interest to those who like to find out odd facts or the roots of colloquialisms.
It is so interesting it hooks you into actually reading all of it. I have, so has my daughter and my best friend (also a nurse).
However, it is factually correct and written well enough to be deemed a suitable source for academic studies. So after reading it for pleasure I found it was a recommended course book for a module in my Health & Social Policy degree. My friend has also delved into it again for her Nursing Studies degree.
This is a book that you keep and visit now and again, not like other academic texts that you cannot wait to sell on the Marketplace.

A great all round history of medicine
This book balances the social history with the anecdotes that bring the history of medicine alive It's incredibly dense and stands a lot of rereading an excellent history of medicine with fascinating looks at some often neglected areas such as Jewish and Arabic medicine of the Middle Ages

History of medicine for the general reader
This book encompasses the broad sweep of the history of medical discovery and medical care from the earliest times and illuminates the story with accounts of scientific method explained in layman's terms and illustrated with anecdotes that range from the revelatory to the highly entertaining. Quite a heavy tome but unputdownable none the less.