Linnea Smith went to Peru on an ecotourism vacation. She was so moved that she abandoned her thriving medical practice in Wisconsin to serve the Yagua Indians in the deepest part of the Amazon rainforest of Peru-alone.Taken straight from the pages of Dr. Smith’s journal, La Doctora offers readers a rare glimpse into the suspense and drama of practicing medicine in a culture far removed from the sophisticated supplies and supports of 20th-century medicine.Learn how Dr. Smith evolved from a “strange white woman” to an adopted member of the indigenous community. Her story of adventure, self-discovery and service creates inspiring testimony to one person’s power to make a lasting difference.

    Informed by her many years working as a nurse, with more than a decade in palliative care, Tisdale provides a frank and compassionate meditation on the inevitable.From the sublime (the faint sound of Mozart as you take your last breath) to the ridiculous (lessons on how to close the sagging jaw of a corpse), Tisdale leads readers through the peaks and troughs of death with a wise and humorous hand. This is more than a how-to manual or a spiritual bible: it is a graceful compilation of honest and intimate anecdotes based on the deaths Tisdale has witnessed in her work and life, as well as stories from cultures, traditions, and literature around the world.

    Initially conceptualized as a survival guide for children, teens, young adults and parents; it quickly transcended into this unprecedented, critical volume. This encompassing work responds to the many desperate and heartbreaking pleas of those affected by dysautonomia; included are clear explanations of medical information, evidenced-based research, best practices for clinical diagnoses and treatment options, alternative/complimentary medicine approaches, non-medical strategies, coping techniques, helpful tips, patient rights and options, and inspiring narrative accounts of people living with the syndrome around the globe. The book contributors and its readers join hand in hand to represent the POTS dysautonomia community's shared struggles and hopes, concerns and endeavors, unequivocally serving as a living testament that "Together We Stand." This is the 3rd Edition!

    She finds that you cannot immunize your child, or yourself, from the world.In this bold, fascinating book, Biss investigates the metaphors and myths surrounding our conception of immunity and its implications for the individual and the social body. As she hears more and more fears about vaccines, Biss researches what they mean for her own child, her immediate community, America, and the world, both historically and in the present moment. She extends a conversation with other mothers to meditations on Voltaire's Candide, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Susan Sontag's AIDS and Its Metaphors, and beyond.On Immunity is a moving account of how we are all interconnected-our bodies and our fates.

    In Under the Knife, surgeon Arnold Van de Laar uses his own experience and expertise to tell the witty history of the past, present and future of surgery.From the story of the desperate man from seventeenth-century Amsterdam who grimly cut a stone out of his own bladder to Bob Marley's deadly toe, Under the Knife offers all kinds of fascinating and unforgettable insights into medicine and history via the operating theatre.What happens during an operation? How does the human body respond to being attacked by a knife, a bacterium, a cancer cell or a bullet? And, as medical advances continuously push the boundaries of what medicine can cure, what are the limits of surgery?From the dark centuries of bloodletting and of amputations without anaesthetic to today's sterile, high-tech operating theatres, Under the Knife is both a rich cultural history, and a modern anatomy class for us all.

    Carmine Sarracino and Kevin Scott argue that porn has seeped into and been absorbed by every defining aspect of our culture: language, entertainment, fashion, advertising, sexual behavior, even politics. Cultural absorption is so complete that we no longer have to purchase pornography to get porn because we increasingly live porn on a daily basis.In tracing porn's transformation-from the Civil War to the golden age of comic books in the 1940s and 1950s to the adult film industry's golden decade of the 1970s and up to today-the authors illustrate that what began in the dark alleys of American life has now emerged as an unapologetic multibillion-dollar industry. In this astonishingly comprehensive book, Sarracino and Scott profile such "porn exemplars"-those who have been pivotal to the mainstreaming of porn-as Russ Meyer, Snoop Dogg, Jenna Jameson, and Paris Hilton; they document how mainstream advertising uses porn culture to sell commercial goods now to an even younger, "tween" audience; and they pose crucial questions: How has porn shaped the way we view our own and others' bodies? Sarracino and Scott examine porned advertising of everything from Clinique to Orbit gum to Old Spice. How has porn influenced our relationships and how do current sexual behaviors, such as the "hookup," mimic porn? The authors look to MySpace and Craigslist for answers. And how does porn shape our identity, as individuals and as a nation? Sarracino and Scott argue that the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib exposed our porned sensibilities.Not an anti-porn diatribe, The Porning of America is resolutely pro-sex. Sarracino and Scott contend that, to make the most of our hard-won sexual freedom, we must thoughtfully-and honestly-evaluate what might be liberating about porn as well as what might be damaging. Nuanced, timely, and urgent, The Porning of America will change how you see the world around you.

    From the start, the drug's manufacturer aggressively marketed its patented time-release formula as a breakthrough in the effort to reduce prescription drug abuse. It wasn't long, however, before thrill-seeking teenagers shattered that illusion of safety; by simply crushing an "Oxy," they were able to tap into a high so seductive it would come to dominate their lives. Some patients, seeking relief from pain, also found themselves drawn to the drug's dark side. Pain Killer takes readers on a journey of discovery that begins with the true story of Lindsay, a high-school cheerleader in Virginia who gets hooked on Oxys, and expands outward to explore the critical issues of legitimate pain management, prescription drug abuse, and how the misuse of science by the drug industry threatens the public good. With the fast-rising abuse of prescription drugs by young people ringing alarm bells within government, the how and why behind the OxyContin disaster is a gripping read not only for parents, but also for medical professionals, community leaders, business executives, and all those concerned with this crisis. The dangers described in Pain Killer also reverberate far beyond the threat from a single drug at a particular moment in time. The focus of our government's war on drugs has clearly misled many of us into thinking that only illegal drugs smuggled from beyond our borders can be abused. As Meier tells the dramatic story, some of the most deadly substances are produced and sold legally right here at home.THE EXTRAORDINARY AND TRUE STORY OF OXYCONTIN EQUAL PARTS crime thriller, medical detective story, and business exposé, Pain Killer takes a hard-hitting look at how a powerful drug touted as the salvation for millions triggered a national tragedy. At its inception, the legal narcotic OxyContin was seen as a pharmaceutical dream, a "wonder" drug that would herald a sea change in medical care while reaping vast profits for its maker. It did do that; but it also unleashed a public health crisis that cut a swath of despair and crime through unsuspecting small towns, suburbs, and cities across the country. As reports of OxyContin overdoses made front-page and network news, doctors, narcotics agents, regulators, industry executives, and lawmakers raced in, scrambling to slow the damage. Behind it all stood one of America's wealthiest families, and a drug company whose relentless promotion helped fuel the problem Written by award-winning journalist Barry Meier, whose special report in the New York Times triggered national interest in OxyContin, Pain Killer chronicles the rise of the multibillion dollar pain management industry and lays bare its excesses and abuses.

    In the midst of all this death, a bizarre disease appeared in Europe. Eventually known as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, it would spread across the world, leaving millions dead or locked in institutions. Then, in 1927, it would disappear as suddenly as it had arrived-or so the doctors at first thought. Asleep, set in 1920s and '30s New York, follows a group of neurologists through hospitals and insane asylums as they try to solve this worldwide epidemic. The symptoms could include not only unending sleep but dangerous insomnia, facial tics, catatonia, Parkinson's, and even violent insanity. Molly Caldwell Crosby, acclaimed author of The American Plague, explores the frightening history of this forgotten disease- and details the frantic effort to conquer it before it strikes again.

    But Maurice Hilleman came close. Maurice Hilleman is the father of modern vaccines. Chief among his accomplishments are nine vaccines that practically every child gets, rendering formerly deadly diseases — including mumps, rubella, and measles — nearly forgotten. Author Paul A. Offit's rich and lively narrative details Hilleman's research and experiences as the basis for a larger exploration of the development of vaccines, covering two hundred years of medical history and traveling across the globe in the process. The history of vaccines necessarily brings with it a cautionary message, as they have come under assault from those insisting they do more harm than good. Paul Offit clearly and compellingly rebuts these arguments, and, by demonstrating how much the work of Hilleman and others has gained for humanity, shows us how much we have to lose.

    What explains sightings of ghosts? Why do they fascinate us? What exactly do those who have been haunted see? What did they believe? And what proof is there?Taking us through the key hauntings that have obsessed the world, from the true events that inspired Henry James's classic The Turn of the Screw right up to the present day, Roger Clarke unfolds a story of class conflict, charlatans, and true believers. The cast list includes royalty and prime ministers, Samuel Johnson, John Wesley, Harry Houdini, and Adolf Hitler. The chapters cover everything from religious beliefs to modern developments in neuroscience, the medicine of ghosts, and the technology of ghosthunting. There are haunted WWI submarines, houses so blighted by phantoms they are demolished, a seventeenth-century Ghost Hunter General, and the emergence of the Victorian flash mob, where hundreds would stand outside rumored sites all night waiting to catch sight of a dead face at a window.Written as grippingly as the best ghost fiction, A Natural History of Ghosts takes us on an unforgettable hunt through the most haunted places of the last five hundred years and our longing to believe.

    In her long and varied life, she was to travel in Central America, Russia and Europe, find work as a inn-keeper and as a doctress during the Crimean War, and become a famed heroine, the author of her own biography, in Britain. As this autobiography shows, Mary Seacole had a sharp instinct for hypocrisy as well as a ripe taste for sarcasm. Frequently we see her joyfully rise to mock the limitations artificially imposed on her as a black woman. She emerges from her writings as an individual with a most un-Victorian zest for travel, adventure and independence.

    Though the world at first recoiled at the notion of a woman studying medicine, her intelligence and intensity ultimately won her the acceptance of the male medical establishment. In 1849, she became the first woman in America to receive an M.D. She was soon joined in her iconic achievement by her younger sister, Emily, who was actually the more brilliant physician.Exploring the sisters’ allies, enemies, and enduring partnership, Janice P. Nimura presents a story of trial and triumph. Together, the Blackwells founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first hospital staffed entirely by women. Both sisters were tenacious and visionary, but their convictions did not always align with the emergence of women’s rights—or with each other. From Bristol, Paris, and Edinburgh to the rising cities of antebellum America, this richly researched new biography celebrates two complicated pioneers who exploded the limits of possibility for women in medicine. As Elizabeth herself predicted, "a hundred years hence, women will not be what they are now."

    She charts the struggles between spiritualists and the medical and legal establishments over the issue of female mediumship, and provides new insights into the gendered dynamics of Victorian society.

    New chapters cover criminal behavior theories and psychological profiling; autoerotic deaths, and occult crimes, plus two new chapters detailing infamous unsolved crimes/criminals: Jack the Ripper and the Jon Benet Ramsey case. The authors′ continuing research and activities in the field result in a multitude of new case studies for this book, often included as boxed inserts.

    Armed with a healthy dose of wit and curiosity, medical journalist Randi Hutter Epstein reveals the “invigorating history” (Nature) of hormones and the age-old quest to control them through the back rooms, basements, and labs where endocrinology began.