Tag: Book Review
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Book review: The Autumn Ghost: How the Battle Against a Polio Epidemic Revolutionized Modern Medical Care
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden In the 1950s, parents on both sides of the Atlantic dreaded the arrival of the annual polio epidemic. In the US, the number of polio cases peaked in the summer. In Scandinavia, the polio season was at its worst in September and October—the “autumn ghost.” Studies done nearly a century earlier indicated…
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Book review: Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England The subjects of ageing, death, and immortality have long preoccupied human thoughts and culture. The ancient Egyptians practiced mummification out of a belief in an afterlife. Buddhists and Hindus believe in reincarnation with the immortal soul living on in another body. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam also have rites and rituals that…
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Book review: The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Well, son, I’ll tell you:Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”– Langston Hughes, “Mother to Son” At the start of the twentieth century, Dr. Hermann Biggs, chief of the New York City Department of Health, declared that tuberculosis (TB) was a reportable communicable disease. The city would be able to count…
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Book review: Meeting the Challenge: Top Women in Science
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Women have long faced difficulties in acceptance to scientific fields. Science today remains male-dominated, but there are more examples of brilliant female scientists who have broken through the so-called glass ceiling. In her preface to Meeting the Challenge, Magdolna Hargittai illustrates this point with the 2020 Chemistry Nobel Prize winners,…
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Book review: Life Unseen: A Story of Blindness
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom In her new book, Selina Mills, an award-winning journalist who is legally blind, takes us on a journey through the cultural history of visual impairment and blindness. It is both informative and empowering, weaving together research and the author’s personal experience. Throughout time, loss of sight has been associated with…
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Book review: Sir Thomas Browne: The Opium of Time
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK Sir William Osler was a great admirer of Sir Thomas Browne’s 1643 Religio Medici, one of his favorite books and on his recommended reading list for medical men. Browne influenced many writers, such as Samuel Johnson, WG Sebald, Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Conrad, and EM Forster. In this slim volume, Gavin…
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Book review: The Story of the Brain in 10 1/2 Cells
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The brain is arguably the most complex organ in the human body, containing more than 100 billion neurons. In this new book, neuroscientist Richard Wingate sets out to describe different types of brain cells, weaving together neuroscience with stories of scientific pioneers who made major contributions to elucidating how the…
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Book review: Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK I do not use superlatives lightly, but this is an extraordinary book. It is ambitious in scope and seeks to describe the progress of humanity from earliest times with an emphasis on the role of infectious diseases in our cultural, economic, political, and scientific development. Drawing from disciplines as diverse as…
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Book review: Pandemic Obsession: How They Feature in our Popular Culture
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK Following the worldwide COVID pandemic, there has been a plethora of books published on the theme of epidemics and pandemics. Readers may be forgiven if they feel they are now suffering from literary pandemic fatigue. However, this interesting new book sets out to describe how pandemics have influenced literary writing throughout…
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Book review: A History of Insanity and the Asylum
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK Mental health topics have long been a source of fascination. In this new book, author Juliana Cummings explores the history of insanity and asylums from the Middle Ages to the modern era, revealing the sometimes-shocking treatment of people with mental illness over the centuries. Although the book is written from a…