Medical History

This program is read by the author. A vital, timely text on the viruses that cause pandemics and how to face them, by the New York Times bestselling author of How Not to Die. From tuberculosis to bird flu and HIV to coronavirus, these infectious diseases share a common origin story: human...

Unsolved Medical Mysteries: Explaining the Unexplainable is your chance to explore the strangest and most confounding cases in medical history. In 12 gripping lectures, acclaimed author, historian, and medical humanities expert Dr. Brandy Schillace guides you on a fascinating journey into the unknown, from historical enigmas to modern medical conundrums. With her unique blend of storytelling and scientific insight, Dr. Schillace digs into a range of medical mysteries

A New York Times EDITORS’ CHOICE | Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize | MOST ANTICIPATED by The Guardian Paste Magazine LitHub The Millions Library Journal From the prizewinning author of The Manningtree Witches, a subversive historical novel set during the French...

Author Cory Franklin, MD, who headed the hospital's intensive care unit from the 1970s through the 1990s, shares his most unique and bizarre experiences, including the deadly Chicago heatwave of 1995, treating the first AIDS patients in the country before the disease was diagnosed, the nurse with rare Munchausen syndrome, the only surviving ricin victim, and the professor with Alzheimer's hiding the effects of the wrong medication.

What is the price of honor? It took 10 years for Vietnam War Nurse Diane Carlson Evans to answer that question - and the answer was a heavy one.

Discover the true story of a self-taught surgeon and trailblazing figure in medical history—Madame Restsell, a revolutionary surgeon who fought for women's rights and healthcare in Gilded Age New York.Madame Restell is a sharp, witty Gilded Age medical history which introduces us to an iconic...

A "gorgeous, thoughtful, heartbreaking" historical novel, The Cape Doctor is the story of one man’s journey from penniless Irish girl to one of most celebrated and accomplished figures of his time (Lauren Fox, New York Times bestselling author of Send for Me). Beginning in Cork, Ireland...

The Great War of 1914-1918 burst on the European scene with a brutality to mankind not yet witnessed by the civilized world. Modern warfare was no longer the stuff of chivalry and honor; it was a mutilative, deadly, and humbling exercise to wipe out the very presence of humanity. Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of maimed, beaten, and bleeding men surged into aid stations and hospitals with injuries unimaginable in their scope and destruction. Doctors scrambled to find some way to salvage not only life but limb.

"Enthralling. Harrowing. Heartbreaking. And utterly redemptive. Lindsey Fitzharris hit this one out of the park." —Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile Lindsey Fitzharris, the award-winning author of The Butchering Art, presents the compelling, true story of a visionary surgeon who...

An accessible guide to more than 90 of the most important and groundbreaking milestones in the history of medicine, and the people behind them. How are illnesses diagnosed? When did the first successful organ transplant take place? Why are some pandemics so deadly? This audiobook explores big...

Cancer touches more lives than you may think. According to the World Health Organization, one out of three women alive today, and one out of two men, will face a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime.To Ty Bollinger, this isn't just a statistic. It's personal. After losing seven members of his...

The definitive social history of tuberculosis, from its origins as a haunting mystery to its modern reemergence that now threatens populations around the world. It killed novelist George Orwell, Eleanor Roosevelt, and millions of others – rich and poor. Desmond Tutu, Amitabh Bachchan, and...

For 200 years, a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. What these strange conditions share is their cause: prions.

From insulin comas and lobotomy to incarceration and exile, Walter Brown chronicles the troubling history of the diagnosis and (often ineffective) treatment of bipolar disorder through the centuries, before the publication of a groundbreaking research paper in 1949. Cade's "Lithium Salts in the Treatment of Psychotic Excitement" described, for the first time, lithium's astonishing efficacy at both treating and preventing the recurrence of manic-depressive episodes, and would eventually transform the lives of patients, pharmaceutical researchers, and practicing physicians worldwide.

12-year-old Isabella, a French princess marries the King of England - only to discover he has a terrible secret. Ten long years later she is in utter despair - does she submit to a lifetime of solitude and a spiritual death - or seize her destiny and take the throne of England for herself? Isabella is just twelve years old when she marries Edward II of England. For the young princess it is love at first sight - but Edward has a terrible secret that threatens to tear their marriage - and England apart.

For centuries, the human heart seemed beyond our understanding: an inscrutable shuddering mass that was somehow the driver of emotion and the seat of the soul. As cardiologist and best-selling author Sandeep Jauhar tells in The Heart, it was only recently that we demolished age-old taboos and devised the transformative procedures that changed the way we live. Deftly alternating between historical episodes and his own work, Jauhar tells the colorful and little known story of the doctors who risked their careers and the patients who risked their lives to know and heal our most vital organ.

From the 15th to the mid-19th centuries, scurvy caused more deaths at sea than storms, shipwrecks, combat, and all other diseases combined. The cure for scurvy ranks among the greatest of military successes, yet its impact on history has mostly been ignored. In this book, Stephen R. Brown delivers a lively recounting of how three determined individuals overcame the constraints of 18th century thinking to solve the greatest medical mystery of their era. Brimming with tales of ships, sailors, and bureaucracy, Brown presents a vivid picture of life aboard the ship during the age of sail.

Landing in Vancouver on a flight from Hong Kong on December 2018, Chinese telecom executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested by Canadian authorities with an American extradition warrant. The US Department of Justice accused Meng of fraud and bypassing sanctions against Iran. Nine days later, in an act...

A mesmerizing biography of the brilliant and eccentric medical innovator who revolutionized American surgery and founded the country’s most famous museum of medical oddities Imagine undergoing an operation without anesthesia performed by a surgeon who refuses to sterilize his tools—or...

The search to find medicines is as old as disease, which is to say as old as the human race. Through serendipity - by chewing, brewing, and snorting - some Neolithic souls discovered opium, alcohol, snakeroot, juniper, frankincense, and other helpful substances. Ötzi the Iceman, the 5,000-year-old hunter frozen in the Italian Alps, was found to have whipworms in his intestines and Bronze Age medicine, a worm-killing birch fungus, knotted to his leggings.