10 books like The Diary of William Harvey

By Jean Hamburger, Barbara Wright (translator),

Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like The Diary of William Harvey. Shepherd is a community of 7,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Harvey's Heart

By Andrew Gregory,

Book cover of Harvey's Heart: The Discovery of Blood Circulation

Helen King Author Of Greek and Roman Medicine

From the list on discovering the circulation of the blood.

Who am I?

I’ve been fascinated by history since I was a fairly sickly child, which means I was gradually drawn towards the history of medicine. Add to that having a hereditary blood clotting condition and you can see why this topic appeals to me! I have a BA and a PhD in History from University College London and have held posts in the universities of Cambridge, Newcastle, Reading, and then at The Open University. I’ve also held visiting professorships in Vienna, Texas, and Minnesota and have published six books as well as editing others. I’m sort of retired but still writing and lecturing.

Helen's book list on discovering the circulation of the blood

Discover why each book is one of Helen's favorite books on discovering the circulation of the blood .

Why this book?

Harvey’s Heart is a tiny book but it packs in a lot, including plenty of illustrations. I used to teach the history of medicine and I found blood circulation a difficult topic – I’m squeamish myself, and faint at blood tests, which doesn’t help! But this book makes Harvey’s ideas very clear, not least how something we now take for granted wasn’t obvious at all until the 17th century.

His breakthrough was a weird mix of building on discoveries by others – such as knowing that valves stop the blood moving backwards – while observing, experimenting, and speculating for himself. Although he published his theory in 1628, he seems to have worked it out maybe ten years earlier. The conventions of science in his day meant he had to offer it to the world rather cautiously, because saying that the ancients had got it wrong was a dangerous claim…

Harvey's Heart

By Andrew Gregory,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Harvey's Heart as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The tale of William Harvey's momentous discovery - that the blood vessels form a closed system, carrying blood pumped rapidly around the body by the heart - is one of ingenuity, imagination and perseverence, and remarkable use of experiment, observation and skill.


Book cover of An Instance of the Fingerpost

Shirley McKay Author Of Queen & Country: A Hew Cullan Mystery

From the list on connecting with the thinking, feeling past.

Who am I?

The Hew Cullan stories are historical crime fiction set at the university of St Andrews, Scotland, in the late sixteenth century. I was a student at St Andrews in the 1980s and now live nearby in the East Neuk of Fife, where the imprint of the town and its surrounding landscapes have remained unchanged since medieval times. What interests me most in writing of the past is how people thought and felt, lived and died and dreamt, and I have chosen books which capture that sense of the inner life, of a moment that belongs to a single time and place, and make it true and permanent.

Shirley's book list on connecting with the thinking, feeling past

Discover why each book is one of Shirley's favorite books on connecting with the thinking, feeling past .

Why this book?

An Instance of the Fingerpost engages with the intellectual world of the seventeenth century in a complex and compelling mystery of misdirection, with multiple shifts of perspective. It’s a way of thinking—and of blindly feeling—through the science of the day, as well as through the shifting layers of plot. And though the focus in this instance is the mind—this is a thinking, not a feeling book—it is quite literally a story of the heart: of the scientific debate about the circulation of the blood.

The ’fingerpost’ is a reference to the typographical marker used in the margins of black letter books to help the reader navigate the text. And it’s a reminder that books, historical or not, look to other books to find their place in history. So Henryson begins with his reading of Chaucer, Lupton quotes from classical and older English works, Macaulay resurrects the ghosts of long-dead words,…

An Instance of the Fingerpost

By Iain Pears,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked An Instance of the Fingerpost as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A fictional tour de force which combines erudition with mystery' PD James

Set in Oxford in the 1660s - a time and place of great intellectual, religious, scientific and political ferment - this remarkable novel centres around a young woman, Sarah Blundy, who stands accused of the murder of Robert Grove, a fellow of New College. Four witnesses describe the events surrounding his death: Marco da Cola, a Venetian Catholic intent on claiming credit for the invention of blood transfusion;Jack Prescott, the son of a supposed traitor to the Royalist cause, determined to vindicate his father; John Wallis, chief cryptographer…


Blood

By Douglas Starr,

Book cover of Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce

Helen King Author Of Greek and Roman Medicine

From the list on discovering the circulation of the blood.

Who am I?

I’ve been fascinated by history since I was a fairly sickly child, which means I was gradually drawn towards the history of medicine. Add to that having a hereditary blood clotting condition and you can see why this topic appeals to me! I have a BA and a PhD in History from University College London and have held posts in the universities of Cambridge, Newcastle, Reading, and then at The Open University. I’ve also held visiting professorships in Vienna, Texas, and Minnesota and have published six books as well as editing others. I’m sort of retired but still writing and lecturing.

Helen's book list on discovering the circulation of the blood

Discover why each book is one of Helen's favorite books on discovering the circulation of the blood .

Why this book?

We think of blood as a gift: if you’re a blood donor you ‘give’ blood. But this book examines how it became a marketable commodity. It starts with Harvey but goes up to CJD and the AIDS crisis. It’s a fascinating story of generosity and greed as well as of those who worked in hematology in the early days when very little was known for sure. With lots of engrossing anecdotes, Starr brings to life the people whose experiments led to our knowledge today.

Blood

By Douglas Starr,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Blood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The story of blood is a story of transformation, divided into three eras. The first period, from antiquity to the early twentieth century, involves the transformation of blood from a magical substance - the blood of Christ as holy sacrament - to a component of human anatomy, capable of being studied and turned into a source of healing. In the next era, which lasts until the end of the Second World War, the scientific curiosity of blood becomes a strategic material. We see medical scientists master the resource, learning the techniques of mass collections and storage, ironically aided in their…


The Circulation of the Blood and Other Writings

By William Harvey, Kenneth Franklin (translator),

Book cover of The Circulation of the Blood and Other Writings

Helen King Author Of Greek and Roman Medicine

From the list on discovering the circulation of the blood.

Who am I?

I’ve been fascinated by history since I was a fairly sickly child, which means I was gradually drawn towards the history of medicine. Add to that having a hereditary blood clotting condition and you can see why this topic appeals to me! I have a BA and a PhD in History from University College London and have held posts in the universities of Cambridge, Newcastle, Reading, and then at The Open University. I’ve also held visiting professorships in Vienna, Texas, and Minnesota and have published six books as well as editing others. I’m sort of retired but still writing and lecturing.

Helen's book list on discovering the circulation of the blood

Discover why each book is one of Helen's favorite books on discovering the circulation of the blood .

Why this book?

Go on. Give yourself a treat! Read the book which started it all! There’s nothing quite like reading the original source. Harvey wrote in Latin but this is a good translation with an excellent introduction by Andrew Wear, an expert on the period. And as a bonus, the Everyman edition includes The Anatomy of Thomas Parr – an account of the dissection of a Shropshire farmer said to be 152 years old, performed by Harvey himself. What killed Parr? Coming to London, a city “full of the filth of men”. Be warned!

The Circulation of the Blood and Other Writings

By William Harvey, Kenneth Franklin (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Circulation of the Blood and Other Writings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been…


Bodies Politic

By Roy Porter,

Book cover of Bodies Politic: Disease, Death, and Doctors in Britain, 1650-1900

Patricia Fara Author Of Life after Gravity: Isaac Newton's London Career

From the list on enlightenment science.

Who am I?

I’m an Emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and I’ve written several popular books as well as featuring in TV/radio programmes such as In Our Time and Start the Week (BBC). I love the challenge of explaining to general audiences why the history of science is such an exciting and important subject – far more difficult than writing an academic paper. I believe that studying the past is crucial for understanding how we’ve reached the present – and the whole point of doing that is to improve the future. My underlying preoccupations involve exploring how and why western science has developed over the last few centuries to become the dominant (and male-dominated) culture throughout the world.

Patricia's book list on enlightenment science

Discover why each book is one of Patricia's favorite books on enlightenment science .

Why this book?

After I decided to include this old favourite of mine, I discovered to my great delight that Bodies Politic is about to be reissued in paperback. Roy Porter was the most prolific, fluent and insightful academic I have ever been privileged to know, and decades ago, his lectures inspired me to recognise how much fun historical research can be. In my own work, I have focused strongly on images – not only in textbooks, but also in journals, art galleries and albums. As Porter expertly discusses, studying caricatures is immensely enjoyable but also invaluable for uncovering concealed controversies, which provide crucial indicators of what people really thought.

Bodies Politic

By Roy Porter,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bodies Politic as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In a historical tour de force, Roy Porter takes a critical look at representations of the body in death, disease and health, and at images of the healing arts in Britain from the mid-seventeenth to the twentieth century. Porter's key assumptions are that the human body is the chief signifier and communicator of all manner of meanings religious, moral, political and medical and that pre-scientific medicine was an art which depended heavily on ritual, rhetoric and theatre. Porter argues that great symbolic weight was attached to contrasting conceptions of the healthy and diseased body, and that such ideas were mapped…


Victorian Pharmacy

By Jane Eastoe,

Book cover of Victorian Pharmacy: Rediscovering Home Remedies and Recipes

Lisa M. Lane Author Of Murder at Old St. Thomas's

From the list on the wonders of Victorian medicine.

Who am I?

I have always been interested in the history of medicine, particularly the ways in which historical methods are portrayed to be inferior to modern medicine. As a historian, I am alternately amused and horrified at the way we go overboard in discarding historical methods of healthcare, ridding ourselves of perfectly useful techniques, drugs, and therapies. The more I learn about older curative methods, the more I’ve become sensitive to the knowledge and technologies that have been lost. At the same time, I am fascinated by new technologies, and find anesthesia particularly captivating as a technique that improved survival and recovery from what had previously been deadly conditions.

Lisa's book list on the wonders of Victorian medicine

Discover why each book is one of Lisa's favorite books on the wonders of Victorian medicine .

Why this book?

A clever introduction to Victorian pharmaceuticals and remedies, this is a companion book for the popular BBC television series. It provides an explanation of the natural substances used for healing, and how they were made into marketable and regulated medicines for sale at the apothecary shop. The emphasis is on safety, because the authors don’t want you trying arsenic and mercury-based compounds at home, and indeed they leave out a great many useful Victorian remedies, particularly those containing opium! But the knowledge about how apothecary shops worked, and what the pharmacist did to turn plants and other substances into medicine, is invaluable.

Victorian Pharmacy

By Jane Eastoe,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Victorian Pharmacy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ties in to a fantastic new four-part BBC series from the makers of the hit Victorian Farm Shows how many products on sale in our high street chemists today can trace their origins back to nineteenth century formulations Full of fascinating facts, remedies and recipes to try at home Victorian Farm sold over 40,000 copies (Nielsen Bookscan figures)

This is the story of consumer medicine - how high street healthcare emerged in just 50 years and how we still rely on hundreds of formulations and products that can trace their origins back to the nineteenth century.

Sun cream, treatments for…


Forensic Medicine

By Keith Simpson,

Book cover of Forensic Medicine

Colin Cotterill Author Of The Coroner's Lunch

From the list on reads whilst awaiting radiology and/or death.

Who am I?

When you write a book, it’s natural to put yourself in it. You’re the avenger, the rookie agent, the hard-drinking detective. But how many of us volunteer to be the corpse? I sit here every day in the cancer unit at a public Thai hospital and smile at folks who won’t be around much longer. I wrote fifteen books in a series about a coroner. I painted the victims colorfully when they were still alive but how much respect did I show them once they were chunks of slowly decaying meat? From now on my treatment of the souls that smile back at me will take on a new life.

Colin's book list on reads whilst awaiting radiology and/or death

Discover why each book is one of Colin's favorite books on reads whilst awaiting radiology and/or death .

Why this book?

I thought I should include a book you have no chance of finding without dredging the second-hand book warehouses in Hay, Wales. (Which is where I found it). Like my protagonist, I had no idea about forensic medicine. But I couldn’t begin my studies in this day and age of CSI and DNA. I had to find a textbook that my Dr. Siri might use to solve cases back in the seventies. This was it, plus hundreds of gruesome photos for your coffee table. Like a true scientist, Dr. Simpson affords the dead not a shred of dignity.  

Forensic Medicine

By Keith Simpson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Forensic Medicine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Good reference. Many photos, some pretty gruesome. Shipped in cardboard mailer.


Book cover of Female Patients in Early Modern Britain: Gender, Diagnosis, and Treatment

Jennifer Evans Author Of Maladies and Medicine: Exploring Health & Healing, 1540-1740

From the list on early modern medicine.

Who am I?

I’m a lecturer in history at the University of Hertfordshire where I teach early modern history of medicine and the body. I have published on reproductive history in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The history of medicine is endlessly diverse, and there are so many books on early modern medicine, some broad and others more specific, it’s this variety that I find endlessly intriguing. Some conditions from the era, like gout and cancer, are familiar, while others like, greensickness, aren’t recognized any longer. Thinking about these differences and about how people’s bodies ached and suffered helps me to appreciate their relationships, struggles, and triumphs in a whole new dimension.

Jennifer's book list on early modern medicine

Discover why each book is one of Jennifer's favorite books on early modern medicine .

Why this book?

I am always fascinated by gender history and women’s experiences in the past. Churchill’s book puts women front and center and considers how medical practitioners understood women’s bodies and health and what women experienced as patients. The book covers traditionally feminine conditions – gynecological and obstetrical issues – but also looks at disorders that affected both men and women, including smallpox, and mental health – hysteria and hypochondria. I like the way this book thinks through all aspects of women’s experiences, how their disorders were understood, who they sought treatment from, and how those treatments were adapted to the specifics of the female body (menstruation and lactation).

Female Patients in Early Modern Britain

By Wendy D. Churchill,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Female Patients in Early Modern Britain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This investigation contributes to the existing scholarship on women and medicine in early modern Britain by examining the diagnosis and treatment of female patients by male professional medical practitioners from 1590 to 1740. In order to obtain a clearer understanding of female illness and medicine during this period, this study examines ailments that were specific and unique to female patients as well as illnesses and conditions that afflicted both female and male patients. Through a qualitative and quantitative analysis of practitioners' records and patients' writings - such as casebooks, diaries and letters - an emphasis is placed on medical practice.…


Operations Without Pain

By Stephanie J. Snow,

Book cover of Operations Without Pain: The Practice and Science of Anaesthesia in Victorian Britain

Lisa M. Lane Author Of Murder at Old St. Thomas's

From the list on the wonders of Victorian medicine.

Who am I?

I have always been interested in the history of medicine, particularly the ways in which historical methods are portrayed to be inferior to modern medicine. As a historian, I am alternately amused and horrified at the way we go overboard in discarding historical methods of healthcare, ridding ourselves of perfectly useful techniques, drugs, and therapies. The more I learn about older curative methods, the more I’ve become sensitive to the knowledge and technologies that have been lost. At the same time, I am fascinated by new technologies, and find anesthesia particularly captivating as a technique that improved survival and recovery from what had previously been deadly conditions.

Lisa's book list on the wonders of Victorian medicine

Discover why each book is one of Lisa's favorite books on the wonders of Victorian medicine .

Why this book?

The development of anesthesia was met with confusion, dismissal, and even derision. While today we are accustomed to the idea of the patient being asleep, at the time it was seen as similar to operating on a dead body. Without the indications of pain or relief, how was the surgeon to feel what he was doing? And in its earliest days, some forms of anesthesia could be dangerous, the patient dying if the dosage wasn’t correct or they had an adverse reaction. But for the patient, and for surgeons who needed more time for an operation, anesthesia was an unequivocal blessing that took away pain and made life-saving procedures possible.

Operations Without Pain

By Stephanie J. Snow,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Operations Without Pain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The introduction of anaesthesia to Victorian Britain marked a defining moment between modern medicine and earlier practices. This book uses new information from John Snow's casebooks and London hospital archives to revise many of the existing historical assumptions about the early history of surgical anaesthesia. By examining complex patterns of innovation, reversals, debate and geographical difference, Stephanie Snow shows how anaesthesia became established as a routine part of British medicine.


The Prince of Medicine

By Susan P. Mattern,

Book cover of The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire

Josiah Osgood Author Of Rome and the Making of a World State, 150 BCE–20 CE

From the list on the grit and glamor of Ancient Rome.

Who am I?

I am a historian of ancient Rome. My interest was sparked in my high school Latin classes. On my first trip to Rome, several years later, I truly fell in love. I could see the famed orator delivering his fierce attacks against Catiline amid the grand temples of the Forum and its surrounding hills. I could imagine myself standing in a crowd, listening. In Washington DC, where I now live and teach at Georgetown University, there are classical buildings all around to keep me inspired. I have written a number of books about Roman political history and have also translated the biographer Suetonius and the historian Sallust.

Josiah's book list on the grit and glamor of Ancient Rome

Discover why each book is one of Josiah's favorite books on the grit and glamor of Ancient Rome .

Why this book?

This biography of the second century CE celebrity doctor Galen is one of the most surprising and revealing books I’ve ever read about Rome. A native of Asia Minor who got his start treating gladiators, Galen came to Rome and vied for prominence with the city’s intellectuals. By his own account, he wowed Romans with his skill in diagnosis and public vivisections of animals as gruesome as anything you’d see in the arena. Something like one-eighth of all surviving classical Greek literature is made up of Galen’s writings. Susan Mattern excavates this vast body of material to recover Galen’s own astonishing career, his interactions with his patients (including the emperor Marcus Aurelius), and his observations of terrible scenes of Roman life such as a dangerous copper mine, famine in the countryside, and a major fire in 192 that burned down much of the imperial capital.

The Prince of Medicine

By Susan P. Mattern,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Prince of Medicine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Galen of Pergamum (A.D. 129 - ca. 216) began his remarkable career tending to wounded gladiators in provincial Asia Minor. Later in life he achieved great distinction as one of a small circle of court physicians to the family of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, at the very heart of Roman society. Susan Mattern's The Prince of Medicine offers the first authoritative biography in English of this brilliant, audacious, and profoundly influential figure.

Like many Greek intellectuals living in the high Roman Empire, Galen was a prodigious polymath, writing on subjects as varied as ethics and eczema, grammar and gout. Indeed, he…


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