Readers Preference Reviews

Personally I always enjoy a historical book that actually discusses history and not some surgically altered history that only reports the things that went right. That is what you get with "A Brief History of Disease, Science & Medicine". Not only do you read about the great advances in medicine but also about the mistakes that were made along the way. Although the book was written with the first year medical student in mind it is easy enough to read and understand by those with only a passing knowledge of basic first aid. Perhaps one sentence from the Forward best describes the writing style - "...it has been written to be read, rather than studied."

Dr. Kennedy states that this book was not widely accepted by the academic presses and so was published independently. It is fairly obvious that one of the reasons this might be the case is his candid examination of the history of medicine. In an age when most practitioners of the medical profession seem to feel that they have perfect knowledge, Dr. Kennedy's book shows that they have often been wrong with tragic results. Take for instance the case of Ignaz Semmelweiss who worked in a hospital where there was a twenty-nine percent mortality rate for women giving birth. Through experimentation and deduction he came to believe that washing your hands between patients and after autopsies would cause this rate to drop. He ordered that hand washing would be done between patients and the rate of death dropped drastically. However, since he had not reason why it worked it was resisted, he eventually resigned (other historians have noted that he was forced to resign) and the doctors returned to their old habits and the old mortality rate. After all it made no sense to them that something they could not see could make any difference. Many people will immediately see the similarities between things like this and modern attitude of medical science as related to alternative therapies - if we don't yet understand how it works then it must not work. Most medical history texts are severely sanitized to keep such historical errors out. So, it is really no surprise that this book, which portrays history as it was, from many primary sources, is not the most popular one among the medical establishment.

Personally, I enjoyed the book but I am one of those who enjoys history from a viewpoint of accuracy - warts and all. Still you should be prepared to have some of your history that you learned in high school discredited. I remember learning that Louis Pasteur invented innoculations to prevent disease in the later 1800's, but the fact is that Charles Maitland and others were doing it in the 1700's. "A Brief History of Disease, Science and Medicine" is a recommended read for anyone interested in the history and progression of medicine.

Author: Michael T. Kennedy MD FACS
Publisher: Asklepiad Press
27525 Puerta Real, Suite 100, #481
Mission Viejo, CA 92691
Copyright: 2004
ISBN: 0974946648
Pages: 456 plus aftermatter