The best medicine books

When I experienced my first episode of multiple sclerosis in 1993, no treatments existed. The doctors said there was nothing to be done. I was raised by a mother whose early widowhood had left her with seven young children, a ranch in Wyoming, and an ambition to change the world.  She did not like the phrase “nothing to be done” and neither did I.

I immersed myself in the medical literature, and thanks to my background in agriculture, I noticed a possible dietary factor in MS that was not being talked about. That observation launched me on a self-designed experiment that continues to this day. Tracking a Shadow tells the story of that experiment and the mother who taught me to ask questions.  

The story of Isaac Newton's decades in London as an ambitious cosmopolitan gentleman, President of London's Royal Society, Master of the Mint, and investor in the slave trade. Isaac Newton is celebrated throughout the world as a great scientific genius who conceived the theory of gravity. But in his early fifties, he abandoned his life as a reclusive university scholar to spend three decades in London, a long period of metropolitan activity that is often overlooked. Enmeshed in Enlightenment politics and social affairs, Newton participated in the linked spheres of early science and imperialist capitalism. Instead of the quiet cloisters and dark libraries of Cambridge's all-male world, he now moved in fashionable London society, which was characterized by patronage relationships, sexual intrigues, and ruthless ambition.

Galen of Pergamum, a Greek doctor in ancient Rome, is a fascinating figure, doctor to several Roman Emperors, a prolific writer, an overbearing egotist, a medical genius, an acute observer, and intelligent thinker, whose influence lasted for a millennium and a half. I have tried to explain the complexities of a man whose writings still provoke admiration or dissent, but rarely allow neutrality.

The Healing Power of Humor has become the quintessential book in the therapeutic humor field. Brimming with pointed, humorous anecdotes and learn-to-laugh techniques, this book combines the wisdom of the world’s great spiritual teachers with the insights of famed humorists, comedians, and others to help you turn life’s negatives into positives. It is the ideal book for anyone going through troubled times—whether it’s the loss of a wallet, the loss of a job, the loss of a loved one, or a stay in the hospital.

Perhaps one Amazon reviewer captured the essence of the book best when they wrote: “I was taking a training that was particularly difficult. At lunch and breaks I would open this book and read. It is like the sun coming out after a thunderstorm. It is fun and serious at the same time.”

This groundbreaking book explores the underbelly of American medicine, the sordid history of scientific researchers using developmentally impaired children in overcrowded and underfunded state institutions as raw material for medical research. Against Their Will documents how thousands of children in hospitals, orphanages, and other public asylums became unwilling subjects in countless experimental studies during the 20th century.

I tried to summarize ancient Greek and Roman medicine in a book you could read in a day. What happened if you felt ill? Who could help? What treatments were on offer – bleeding was one – and would they make any difference? How did people think the body worked? 

Ancient medicine is pre-antibiotics, and indeed pre-all the knowledge of the body which we take for granted; including how blood moves around the body. My final chapter covered the influence of ancient medicine up to the nineteenth century (when people still translated Greek and Roman texts, because they thought the medicine worked!) and I briefly mentioned William Harvey who discovered circulation and published his book on it in 1628. Although saying something new, he still talked about the ancients: “Mistress Antiquity”. He still had to show that he knew the work of Aristotle and Galen, as well as of his contemporaries.

My book is a non-fiction medical mystery that follows a team of doctors as they investigate a severe form of memory loss in fentanyl overdose survivors. I also portray the experience of a patient who helps these doctors, a young man who succumbs to this devastating amnesia. The newly identified amnestic syndrome reveals that opioids have a unique ability to damage the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center. This discovery is cause for concern. But at the same time, it suggests new ways that we may be able to protect memory. I also explore the obstacles researchers confront when new ideas collide with conventional wisdom, the elegant tricks scientists use to tease out how memory works, and why researchers now believe a treatment for Alzheimer’s is within reach.

Maladies and Medicine offers a lively exploration of health and medical cures in early modern England for anyone curious about the history of the body and the way our ancestors lived. This was an era when tooth cavities were thought to be caused by tiny worms and smallpox by an inflammation of the blood, and cures ranged from herbal potions, cooling cordials, blistering the skin, to of course letting blood. The book’s twenty chapters cover attitudes towards, and explanations of, some of the most common diseases and medical conditions in the period, along with the steps people took to get better.

It explores the body from head to toe, from migraines to gout. Case studies and personal anecdotes taken from doctors’ notes, personal journals, diaries, letters, and even court records show the reactions of individuals to their illnesses and treatments, bringing the reader closer to patients who lived c.400 years ago.

Maladies and Medicine offers a lively exploration of health and medical cures in early modern England for anyone curious about the history of the body and the way our ancestors lived. This was an era when tooth cavities were thought to be caused by tiny worms and smallpox by an inflammation of the blood, and cures ranged from herbal potions, cooling cordials, blistering the skin, to of course letting blood. The book’s twenty chapters cover attitudes towards, and explanations of, some of the most common diseases and medical conditions in the period, along with the steps people took to get better.

It explores the body from head to toe, from migraines to gout. Case studies and personal anecdotes taken from doctors’ notes, personal journals, diaries, letters, and even court records show the reactions of individuals to their illnesses and treatments, bringing the reader closer to patients who lived c.400 years ago.

Maladies and Medicine offers a lively exploration of health and medical cures in early modern England for anyone curious about the history of the body and the way our ancestors lived. This was an era when tooth cavities were thought to be caused by tiny worms and smallpox by an inflammation of the blood, and cures ranged from herbal potions, cooling cordials, blistering the skin, to of course letting blood. The book’s twenty chapters cover attitudes towards, and explanations of, some of the most common diseases and medical conditions in the period, along with the steps people took to get better.

It explores the body from head to toe, from migraines to gout. Case studies and personal anecdotes taken from doctors’ notes, personal journals, diaries, letters, and even court records show the reactions of individuals to their illnesses and treatments, bringing the reader closer to patients who lived c.400 years ago.