Pale Faces

by Bardes, Charles L.; Kilpatrick, Barbara

• ISBN13: 9781934137109
• ISBN10: 1934137103
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-06-01
• Publisher: Bellevue Literary Pr

Summary

"Charles Bardes' meditations on medicine . . . are beautifully-transparently-written, deeply informed . . . and they carry surprise."-Sven Birkerts, author of Reading Life and The Gutenberg ElegiesWhether mild or deadly, anemia affects an essential body fluid: blood. Probing deeply into this illness as metaphor, Charles L. Bardes explores the impact of both science and culture on its treatment across the ages. His innovative "life" of this condition ranges widely through history, art, literature, and clinical practice to examine how the way doctors think influences the practice of medicine.

Table of Contents

Propylaeum	p. 9
Anemia	p. 11
Symptoms/I feel sick	p. 13
Diseasification	p. 15
Pallor	p. 20
The malice sickle	p. 27
Diagnosis/what's wrong	p. 35
The green sicknesse	p. 37
Anemia's old tale	p. 47
What the doctor is thinking	p. 54
Diagnostic ceremonies	p. 64
Anemic knowing	p. 81
Spleen	p. 83
Marrow	p. 90
Diseases of the blood	p. 99
Anemia world	p. 104
Treatment/would they do to me?	p. 111
Iron	p. 113
Bloodletting	p. 126
Transfusion	p. 135
Is anemia good for you?	p. 141
The blood of the Medusa	p. 145
Mythos/story	p. 153
The birth of clinical tragedy	p. 155
Why again Greeks?	p. 159
Postscript	p. 161
Acknowledgments	p. 162
Notes and references	p. 163
Index	p. 186
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