Bad Medicine Doctors Doing Harm since Hippocrates

by Wootton, David

• ISBN13: 9780192803559
• ISBN10: 0192803557
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-07-20
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

We all face disease and death, and rely on the medical profession to extend our lives. Yet, David Wootton argues, from the fifth century BC until the 1930s, doctors actually did more harm than good. In this controversial new account of the history of medicine, he asks just how much good it has done us over the years, and how much harm it continues to do today.

Author Biography

David Wootton is Anniversary Professor of History at the University of York. He has published widely in early modern intellectual history, particularly on the history of political thought, and is a regular reviewer for the London Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement.

Table of Contents

NOTE ON SOURCES	xi
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS	xiii
LIST OF TABLES	xv
Introduction: Bad Medicine/Better Medicine	1	(26)
I. The Hippocratic Tradition	27	(44)
1. Hippocrates and Galen	29	(13)
2. Ancient Anatomy	42	(7)
3. The Canon	49	(4)
4. The Senses	53	(14)
Conclusion to Part I: the Placebo Effect	67	(4)
II. Revolution Postponed	71	(80)
5. Vesalius and Dissection	73	(21)
6. Harvey and Vivisection	94	(16)
7. The Invisible World	110	(29)
Conclusion to Part II: Trust Not the Physician	139	(12)
III. Modern Medicine	151	(106)
8. Counting	153	(24)
9. Birth of the Clinic	177	(8)
10. The Laboratory	185	(10)
11. John Snow and Cholera	195	(16)
12. Puerperal Fever	211	(13)
13. Joseph Lister and Antiseptic Surgery	224	(18)
14. Alexander Fleming and Penicillin	242	(8)
Conclusion to Part III: Progress Delayed	250	(7)
IV. After Contagion	257	(32)
15. Doll, Bradford Hill, and Lung Cancer	259	(10)
16. Death Deferred	269	(14)
Conclusion	283	(6)
FURTHER READING	289	(6)
INDEX	295