Twenty-four true, wide-ranging tales of crime, history, human behavior, illness, and ethics, told from the personal perspective of the author, an eminent physician-lawyer who uses the stories to illustrate the principles of human genetics and to discuss the broader issues.

    At his death last spring, Roueche left behind seven new narratives that have never been published in book form. This book collects these works along with one earlier classic--all relating true tales of strange illnesses, rare diseases, and the brilliant minds who race to understand and conquer them.

    Ian Hodder and Scott Hutson argue that archaeologists must consider a variety of perspectives in the complex and uncertain task of "translating the meaning of past texts into their own contemporary language". While remaining centered on the importance of meaning, agency and history, the authors explore the latest developments in post-structuralism, neo-evolutionary theory and phenomenology. Previous Edition Hb (1991): 0-521-40142-9 Previous Edition Pb (1991): 0-521-40957-8

    This pamphlet explores two important phases in the male takeover of health care: the suppression of witches in medieval Europe and the rise of the male medical profession in the United States. The authors conclude that despite efforts to exclude them, the resurgence of women as healers should be a long-range goal of the women’s movement.

    Illustrated.

     Auditory hallucination is one of the most awe-inspiring, terrifying, and ill-understood tricks the human psyche is capable of. Muses, Madmen, and Prophets reevaluates the popular conception of the phenomenon today and through the ages, and reveals the roots of the medical understanding and treatment of it. It probes history, literature, anthropology, psychology, and neurology to explain and demystify the experience of hearing voices, in a fascinating and at times funny quest for understanding. Daniel B. Smith's personal experience with the phenomenon-his father heard voices, and it was the great torment and shame of his father's life-and his discovery that some people learn to live in peace with their voices fuels this contemplative, brilliantly researched, and inspired book. Science has not been able to fully explain the phenomenon of auditory hallucination. It is a condition that has existed perhaps as long as we have-there is evidence of it in literature and even pre-literate oral histories from across all times and cultures. Smith presents the sophisticated and radical argument that a negative side effect of living as we do in this great age of medical science is that we have come to limit this phenomenon to nothing more than a biochemical glitch for which the only proper response is medical, pharmaceutical treatment. This "pathological assumption" can inflict great harm on the people who hear voices by ignoring the meaning and reality of the experience for them. But it also obscures from the rest of us a rich wellspring of knowledge about the essential source of faith and inspiration. As Smith examines the many incidences of people who have famously heard voices throughout history-Moses, Mohammed, Teresa of Avila, Joan of Arc, Rilke, William Blake, Socrates, and others-he considers the experience of auditory hallucination in light of its relationship to the nature of pure faith and as the key to the source of artistic inspiration. At the heart of Smith's exploration into the many extraordinary, strange, sometimes frightening and sometimes almost supernatural aspects of auditory hallucination is his driving personal need to comprehend an experience that, when considered in good faith, is as profound and complex as human consciousness itself.

    Despite its relatively narrow focus, it is chock full of the pearls of clinical wisdom that students and practitioners treasure, and many of these lessons apply to medicine in general. The book was well characterized by a reviewer of an earlier edition for The New England Journal of Medicine: If only one book about surgery could be made available to physicians from all specialties, it should probably be Silen's recent revision of Cope's Early Diagnosis of the Acute Abdomen. Since the book first appeared more than 30 years ago, it has remained the classic treatise on the initial approach to abdominal pain. Because acute, severe abdominal pain is still a common problem whose misdiagnosis can result in quick death, each generation of beginning physicians is faced with the urgency of learning to make a diagnosis in this high anxiety situation and they appreciate the wise, humane, precisely detailed guidance offered by Cope and Silen. For the 21st Edition, Dr. Silen has again updated the text in a respectful but significant way. He has strengthened its emphasis on pitfalls in the interpretation of CT and ultrasound scans, on misadventures caused by over-reliance on blood tests and radiographs, and on careful history-taking to avoid the costs of inappropriate lab tests. He has also reviewed the data from a randomized clinical trial indicating that patients should receive adequate analgesia while awaiting a definitive diagnosis, a dictum that is contrary to traditional teaching

    Real stories about the patients, nurses, consulting physicians, and daily life of a busy Emergency Department. Get a glimpse inside the inner workings of an Emergency Department and the staff that works there, caring for patients and their families. From a toddler who can cuss a blue streak, a dead mouse brought into the Emergency Department, to critical resuscitations, these are stories that you will never forget.

    LEOs from all over the U.S. have sent in submissions that recall the good, the bad, and the utterly hilarious events they've encountered while in uniform. Stories inside include officers responding to misunderstandings, first-hand accounts of drunk and high subjects, events officers still can't explain today, and devastating recollections of their darkest calls.

    It is also no secret that these nineteenth-century gynecologists performed experimental caesarean sections, ovariotomies, and obstetric fistula repairs primarily on poor and powerless women. Medical Bondage breaks new ground by exploring how and why physicians denied these women their full humanity yet valued them as "medical superbodies" highly suited for medical experimentation.In Medical Bondage, Cooper Owens examines a wide range of scientific literature and less formal communications in which gynecologists created and disseminated medical fictions about their patients, such as their belief that black enslaved women could withstand pain better than white "ladies." Even as they were advancing medicine, these doctors were legitimizing, for decades to come, groundless theories related to whiteness and blackness, men and women, and the inferiority of other races or nationalities. Medical Bondage moves between southern plantations and northern urban centers to reveal how nineteenth-century American ideas about race, health, and status influenced doctor-patient relationships in sites of healing like slave cabins, medical colleges, and hospitals. It also retells the story of black enslaved women and of Irish immigrant women from the perspective of these exploited groups and thus restores for us a picture of their lives.

    The anguished and volatile intensity associated with the artistic temperament was once thought to be a symptom of genius or eccentricity peculiar to artists, writers, and musicians. Her work, based on her study as a clinical psychologist and researcher in mood disorders, reveals that many artists subject to exalted highs and despairing lows were in fact engaged in a struggle with clinically identifiable manic-depressive illness. Jamison presents proof of the biological foundations of this disease and applies what is known about the illness to the lives and works of some of the world's greatest artists including Lord Byron, Vincent Van Gogh, and Virginia Woolf.

    In developed countries, increasingly people are choosing not to have children. The causes of this 'revolution' are many including the belief that to create a new life is to subject someone unnecessarily, and without their consent, to life's many sufferings including death. This belief and its underlying philosophy is known as anti-natalism. There has been a recent resurgence of this philosophy, with David Benatar's book Better Never To Have Been (2006) as a major catalyst. Anti-natalism can be seen as part of a broader philosophy, described here as Rejectionism, which finds existence -directly or indirectly, i.e. as procreation - as deeply problematic and unacceptable. The book traces the development of this philosophy from its ancient religious roots in Hinduism (Moksha) and Buddhism (Nirvana) to its most modern articulation by the South African philosopher David Benatar. It examines the contribution to rejectionist thought by Schopenhauer and von Hartmann in the 19th century and Zapffe, a little known Norwegian thinker, in the 20th century, and most recently by Benatar. Benatar and Zapffe represent this approach most clearly as anti-natalism. The book also devotes a chapter to the literary expression of rejectionist philosophy in the works of Samuel Beckett and J.P.Sartre. In sum, far from being an esoteric doctrine rejectionism has been a major presence in human history straddling all three major cultural forms - religious, philosophical and literary. The book argues that anti-natal philosophy and its practice owe a great deal to three major developments: secularization, liberalization of social attitudes, and technological advances (contraception). Anti-natal attitudes and practice should therefore be seen as a part of 'progress' in that these developments are widening our choice of lifestyles and attitudes to existence. In sum, The book argues that anti-natalism needs to be taken seriously and considered as a legitimate view of a modern, secular civilization. Secondly, the book seeks to situate current anti-natalist thought in its historical and philosophical perspective. Finally, it argues that in order to develop anti-natalism further it needs to be institutionalized as a form rational 'philosophy of life', and more attention needs to be paid to the problems and prospect of putting this philosophy into practice. Author Bio: The author is a social scientist. After receiving a Ph.D degree from the University of London he has been a university professor. This book is a result of his long-standing interest in issues of existence and existential philosophy. Keywords: Anti-Natalism, Existence, Moksha, Nirvana, Rejectionism, Suffering, Schopenhauer, Zapffe, Benatar, Beckett.

    León covers subjects as diverse as astronomy and astrology, philosophy and practicalities of life and death (including the titular ancient method of embalming), and ancient mechanical engineering. How to Mellify a Corpse of course invokes legendary thinkers (Pythagoras and his discoveries in math and music, Aristotle's books on politics and philosophy, and Archimedes' "Eureka" moment), but it also delves deeply into the lives of everyday people, their understanding and beliefs.A feast for the curious mind, How to Mellify a Corpse is not only for those with an interest in the experimental: it's for anyone who's inspired by the imagination and ingenuity humanity uses to understand our world.

    • Assess for yourself the stunning visual evidence presented in some 200 photographs. • Examine previously unpublished testimony from expert informants. • Discover new research undertaken by von Däniken after the opening up of previously inaccessible regions, such as the jungle city “Buritaca 200” in Colombia.

    The authors' accompanying history of both societal and psychiatric standards for women reveals the degree to which the prevailing societal conventions could reinforce the perception that these women were mad.