Title: Blood and guts :
Authors: Porter, Roy,
Date: 2002
Publisher: Allen Lane,
Physical description: 199 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.
Language: English
LC classification: R
Abstract: "This book by Britain's greatest medical historian explores the many ingenious ways in which we have fought disease over the ages in our quest for immortality. Roy Porter examines the changing role of doctors, from ancient healers, apothecaries and blood-letters to today's professionals; looks at the drugs we have used, from Ayurvedic remedies to the launch of Viagra in 1998; follows the huge advances in surgery, from amputations performed by barbers without anaesthetic to today's sophisticated transplants; and shows how hospitals have been transformed from Christian places of convalescence to modern medical powerhouses. He concludes that, while many people lead longer and healthier lives in the twenty-first century, our worries about illness and our mistrust of medics seem to be greater than ever."--BOOK JACKET.
Contents: 1. Disease -- 2. Doctors -- 3. The Body -- 4. The Laboratory -- 5. Therapies -- 6. Surgery -- 7. The Hospital -- 8. Medicine in Modern Society.
Subject headings (LCSH): Medicine--History