Tag: Books and Reviews
-
Book review: The Origins of AIDS
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom This is a revised and updated edition of a book first published in 2011. This edition is timely, as this year marks the fortieth anniversary of the first descriptions of the disease today known as AIDS. In 1981 Gottlieb and co-workers in the US reported to the Centers for Disease…
-
Anatomica: The exquisite and unsettling art of human anatomy
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The first known anatomy book was written around 300 BC by Diocles, a Greek philosopher and physician who based his work on animal dissections. Andreas Vesalius’ De Humani corpori Fabrica from 1543 was the first major work based on dissections of human cadavers. It dispelled many myths and challenged the…
-
Winston Churchill’s Illnesses
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Winston Churchill was one of the most important political figures of the twentieth century. As such, it is not surprising that he has been the subject of many biographies that have chronicled his life and many achievements, most notably the comprehensive eight-volume opus by British historian and Churchill scholar, Martin…
-
Book review: Island Dreams: Mapping an Obsession
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Gavin Francis is a Scottish doctor, author, and traveler who has worked in emergency medicine, family medicine, and as the resident doctor for the Antarctic survey, which resulted in a previous book. His wanderlust and way with words have been favorably compared to the late Bruce Chatwin. Island Dreams: Mapping…
-
Book review: Viruses, Plagues, and History by M. B. A. Oldstone
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The first edition of Viruses, Plagues, and History was published to great acclaim twenty years ago and has now been updated to include the pandemics of the twenty-first century. These include the SARS, MERS, and Zika virus outbreaks, which have now been eclipsed by COVID-19. The early story of the…
-
Book review: Architects of Structural Biology
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Modern twenty-first-century high-technology medicine, which we now take for granted, was only made possible by remarkable advances in the physical and biological sciences of the twentieth century. In Architects of Structural Biology, the contributions of four scientific giants and Nobel laureates—Lawrence Bragg, Max Perutz, John Kendrew, and Dorothy Hodgkin—are described…
-
Book review: A Brief History of Ayurveda
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Ayurveda translates from the Sanskrit as “the science of life and longevity.” It originated over 4,000 years ago as a system of healing in the Indian subcontinent, where it flourished until the nineteenth century. The Harappan civilization in the Indus valley around 2000 BC saw its early roots in India.…
-
C. Miller Fisher: Stroke in the twentieth century
Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK Stroke, in spite of its serious and widespread impact, had long received little interest from physicians. C. Miller Fisher, one of the twentieth century’s outstanding neurologists and researchers, revolutionized the management of stroke. In this well-researched and readable biography, Louis Caplan, a distinguished Harvard neurologist and former trainee of Miller…
-
Book review: A Time for All Things: The Life of Michael E. DeBakey by Craig Miller
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK In the latter half of the twentieth century, Michael DeBakey was a worldwide household name, a remarkable feat for a surgeon in the days before the cult of celebrity had become part of the cultural zeitgeist. Craig Miller, himself a distinguished vascular surgeon and medical historian, has written a superb scholarly and…