num_pages: 872
description: "To combine enormous knowledge with a delightful style and a highly idiosyncratic point of view is Roy Porter's special gift, and it makes [this] book . . . alive and fascinating and provocative on every page."—Oliver Sacks, M.D.Porter's charting of the history of medicine affords readers the opportunity as never before to assess its culture and science and its costs and benefits to humankind. "A splendid and thoroughly engrossing book."--"L.A. Times." of illustrations.
language: English
title: The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity
titlecomplete: The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity
genres: History Of Medicine, Medical, History, World History, Biology, Science, Health, History Of Science, Medicine, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 797
awards: awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Los Angeles Times Book Prize
category: History, awardedAt: 883641600000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: General Nonfiction
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company