Medical History

Nearly two decades after it closed, the South Carolina State Hospital continues to hold a palpable mystique in Columbia and throughout the state. Founded in 1821 as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, it housed, fed, and treated thousands of patients incapable of surviving on their own. The patient population in 1961 eclipsed 6,600, well above its listed capacity of 4,823. By the mid-1990s, the patient population had fallen under 700, and the hospital had become a symbol of captivity, horror, and chaos.

With X-rays, doctors detect problems human eyes can't see. X-rays are a form of invisible radiation. This powerful medical technology helps experts look inside the body and even treat illnesses. But early on, X-rays caused harm too, as people used them without enough protection. This history covers the discovery of X-rays, the development of safety standards, and the rise of more powerful and precise X-ray machines. Find out how modern doctors create digital images of the inner body—even 3D images of our brains!

Today, nursing is one of the most ubiquitous professions in the world, and images of war immediately call to mind nursing the wounded, but it was not long ago that such ideas were relatively primitive. Indeed, schoolchildren are still taught about the revolutionary exploits of Florence Nightingale, the war nurse who is often credited as the founder of modern nursing. Florence Nightingale first came to prominence during the Crimean War in the middle of the 19th century when she helped organize efforts to treat wounded soldiers.

After traveling 60 miles on horseback through snow to the Crawford cabin, Dr. Ephraim McDowell examines his patient. He realizes that he is not dealing with an overdue pregnancy, but an enlarged ovarian cyst. He gives the patient the grim news that he can do nothing to save her. She begs him to try to remove the life-threatening tumor.

InHumana: An American Healthcare Story tells how an only child was conscripted into a war with a soulless monstrosity that repeatedly tried to throw his widowed mom's life away with the surreptitious aid of unregulated artificial intelligence.

This “brutal and brave” (Booklist) novel transmutes the practice of medicine into a larger exploration of humanity, the meaning of care, and the nature of annihilation—physical, spiritual, or both. A young woman puts on a white coat for her first day as a student doctor. So begins this...

A physician’s bold critique of medical rape culture—and her call for a new model of care that centers consent and empowers patients Medical culture has a problem with consent—and it’s not just a few bad doctors. That’s the conclusion of Dr. Zed Zha in Consented, a groundbreaking look...

In Unsustainable, Dr. Christopher Voss—a physician with expertise in anesthesiology, critical care, pain medicine, and lifestyle medicine—offers a compelling, well-researched examination of how capitalism has shaped modern healthcare, often rewarding continuous treatment over definitive cures.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to The Final Trilogy and experience the compelling world of science-fiction thrillers.

The Elephant Man is Treves' own firsthand account of how he met and befriended Joseph Merrick (whom he mistakenly calls John Merrick), a young man with very severe physical deformities, who was being exhibited as a sideshow freak, as half man, half elephant. Treves initially invited Merrick to his rooms in the London Hospital so as to examine him, and to ensure Merrick's admittance he gave him his card.

Jede Krankheit und jeder Mensch haben das Potential, Medizingeschichte zu schreiben. Seit Hunderten von Jahren ergründen Ärzte und Ärztinnen auf der ganzen Welt die Geheimnisse der Medizin, indem sie sich echte Fälle ansehen. Autor und Arzt Roy Benaroch hat für uns spannende Fälle der Medizingeschichte gesammelt, in denen bekannte Persönlichkeiten der Weltgeschichte als mysteriöser Patient oder Patientin vor uns stehen.

This amazing tale is the story of one of America's oldest and most unusual urban hospitals. From it's inception as a "Poor House" dispensing free medical care to indigents, Chicago's Cook County Hospital has been both a renowned teaching hospital and the healthcare provider of last resort for the city's uninsured. County covers more than thirty years of its history, beginning in the late 1970s when the author began his internship, to the "Final Rounds" when the enormous iconic Victorian hospital building was replaced and hundreds of former trainees gathered to bid it an emotional farewell.

How hard-working individuals have kept abortion afloat in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s destruction, and the continued help needed if we want to sustain it When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, many feared it meant the end of abortion access in the United States. Yet the...

Black women physicians’ stories have gone untold for far too long, leaving gaping holes in American medical history, in women’s history, and in black history. It’s time to set the record straight No real account of black women physicians in the US exists, and what little mention is made of...

Johns Hopkins University, one of the preeminent medical schools in the nation today, has played a unique role in the history of medicine. When it first opened its doors in 1893, medicine was a rough-and-ready trade. It would soon evolve into a rigorous science. In recent years, medical science has mapped the human genome, deployed robotic tools to perform delicate surgeries, and developed effective vaccines against a host of deadly pathogens. But this transformation could not have happened without the game-changing vision, talent, and dedication of a small cadre of individuals.

From the acclaimed author of The Shakespeare Wars and Explaining Hitler comes a stirring manifesto on love in the modern age. Who wrote the book of love? In an impassioned polemic, Ron Rosenbaum—who has written books on the mysteries of Hitler’s evil, the magic of Shakespeare’s words, and...

Crypto, decentralized blockchains, NFTs, and the ownership economy of web3 hold the future of healthcare. Discover how the metaverse provides innovative business models that are poised to revolutionize the way society approaches health. Wealthcare envisions what healthcare and wellness may look like when accidental wellness is a thing of the past. As web3 technology reshapes finance, supply chain, social media, and other industries, Wealthcare presents a clear case for including healthcare privacy and innovation within this new reality.

For the truly well-rounded "intellectual," nothing fascinates so much as the subversive, the contrarian, the suppressed, and the bizarre. Richard Zacks has unloosed his admittedly strange mind and astonishing research abilities upon the entire spectrum of human knowledge, ferreting out endlessly fascinating facts, and stories guaranteed to make you laugh, gasp in wonder, and occasionally shudder at the depths of human depravity. The result of his labors is this quasi-encyclopedia that provides alternative takes on art, business, crime, science, medicine, sex (lots of that), and many other facets of human experience.

Arthur Conan Doyle was a GP before he became a writer. He uses his medical knowledge widely in the Sherlock Holmes stories. He bases the deductive skills of his hero detective on the diagnostic techniques a GP uses with a patient. He even gives Sherlock a GP sidekick. This all contributes to the enduring popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories, over 130 years after the first story was published.

From alchemy to wellness culture, from antisemitism to disposable plastic, a gripping account of how getting sick has shaped humanity. Anti-science, anti-vaccine, anti-reason beliefs seem to be triumphing over common sense today. How did we get here? The Great Shadow brings a huge missing piece...