For every one of the cells that make up the vessel that you call your body, there are nine impostor cells hitching a ride. You are not just flesh and blood, muscle and bone, brain and skin, but also bacteria and fungi. Over your lifetime, you will carry the equivalent weight of five African elephants in microbes. You are not an individual but a colony.Until recently, we had thought our microbes hardly mattered, but science is revealing a different story, one in which microbes run our bodies and becoming a healthy human is impossible without them.In this riveting, shocking, and beautifully written book, biologist Alanna Collen draws on the latest scientific research to show how our personal colony of microbes influences our weight, our immune system, our mental health, and even our choice of partner. She argues that so many of our modern diseases—obesity, autism, mental illness, digestive disorders, allergies, autoimmunity afflictions, and even cancer—have their root in our failure to cherish our most fundamental and enduring relationship: that with our personal colony of microbes.Many of the questions about modern diseases left unanswered by the Human Genome Project are illuminated by this new science. And the good news is that unlike our human cells, we can change our microbes for the better. Collen's book is a revelatory and indispensable guide. It is science writing at its most relevant: life—and your body—will never seem the same again.

    González-Crussi presents a brief yet authoritative five-hundred-year history of the science, the philosophy, and the controversies of modern medicine. While this illuminating work mainly explores Western medicine over the past five centuries, González-Crussi also describes how modern medicine’s roots extend to both Greco-Roman antiquity and Eastern medical traditions. Covered here in engaging detail are the birth of anatomy and the practice of dissections; the transformation of surgery from a gruesome art to a sophisticated medical specialty; a short history of infectious diseases; the evolution of the diagnostic process; advances in obstetrics and anesthesia; and modern psychiatric therapies and the challenges facing organized medicine today. González-Crussi’s approach to these and other topics stems from his professed belief that the history of medicine isn’t just a continuum of scientific achievement but is deeply influenced by the personalities of the men and women who made or implemented these breakthroughs. And, as we learn, this field’s greatest practitioners were, like the rest of us, human beings with flaws, weaknesses, and limitations–including some who were scoundrels.Insightful, informed, and at times controversial in its conclusions, A Short History of Medicine offers an exceptional introduction to the major and many minor facets of its subject. Written by a renowned author and educator, this book gives us the very essence of humankind’s search to mitigate suffering, save lives, and unearth the mysteries of the human animal. Praise for F. González-Crussi“What Oliver Sacks does for the mind, González-Crussi [does] for the eye in this captivating set of philosophical meditations on the relationship between the viewer and the viewed.”–Publishers Weekly, on On Seeing“[González-Crussi fuses] science, literature, and personal history into highly civilized artifacts.”–The Washington Post, on There Is a World Elsewhere

    She shows how the stalling of early twentieth century efforts in this direction allowed Freudians and social scientists to insist, with some justification, that they had better ways of analyzing and fixing minds.But when the Freudians overreached, they drove psychiatry into a state of crisis that a new “biological revolution” was meant to alleviate. Harrington shows how little that biological revolution had to do with breakthroughs in science, and why the field has fallen into a state of crisis in our own time.Mind Fixers makes clear that psychiatry’s waxing and waning biological enthusiasms have been shaped not just by developments in the clinic and lab, but also by a surprising range of social factors, including immigration, warfare, grassroots activism, and assumptions about race and gender. Government programs designed to empty the state mental hospitals, acrid rivalries between different factions in the field, industry profit mongering, consumerism, and an uncritical media have all contributed to the story as well.In focusing particularly on the search for the biological roots of schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder, Harrington underscores the high human stakes for the millions of people who have sought medical answers for their mental suffering. This is not just a story about doctors and scientists, but about countless ordinary people and their loved ones.A clear-eyed, evenhanded, and yet passionate tour de force, Mind Fixers recounts the past and present struggle to make mental illness a biological problem in order to lay the groundwork for creating a better future, both for those who suffer and for those whose job it is to care for them.

    Its clinicopathologic orientation highlights the impact of molecular pathology on the practice of medicine. And, it integrates clinical and anatomic pathology, and discusses laboratory diagnosis of specific disorders.

    The age-old disease spread swiftly through an increasingly interconnected American landscape: from southern tobacco plantations to the dense immigrant neighborhoods of northern cities to far-flung villages on the edges of the nascent American empire. In Pox, award-winning historian Michael Willrich offers a gripping chronicle of how the nation's continentwide fight against smallpox launched one of the most important civil liberties struggles of the twentieth century.At the dawn of the activist Progressive era and during a moment of great optimism about modern medicine, the government responded to the deadly epidemic by calling for universal compulsory vaccination. To enforce the law, public health authorities relied on quarantines, pesthouses, and "virus squads"-corps of doctors and club-wielding police. Though these measures eventually contained the disease, they also sparked a wave of popular resistance among Americans who perceived them as a threat to their health and to their rights.At the time, anti-vaccinationists were often dismissed as misguided cranks, but Willrich argues that they belonged to a wider legacy of American dissent that attended the rise of an increasingly powerful government. While a well-organized anti-vaccination movement sprang up during these years, many Americans resisted in subtler ways-by concealing sick family members or forging immunization certificates. Pox introduces us to memorable characters on both sides of the debate, from Henning Jacobson, a Swedish Lutheran minister whose battle against vaccination went all the way to the Supreme Court, to C. P. Wertenbaker, a federal surgeon who saw himself as a medical missionary combating a deadly-and preventable-disease.As Willrich suggests, many of the questions first raised by the Progressive-era antivaccination movement are still with us: How far should the government go to protect us from peril? What happens when the interests of public health collide with religious beliefs and personal conscience? In Pox, Willrich delivers a riveting tale about the clash of modern medicine, civil liberties, and government power at the turn of the last century that resonates powerfully today.

    Our stories are marbled into their marrow.Drawing upon her years of research and a wealth of remarkable experience, the world-renowned forensic anthropologist Professor Dame Sue Black takes us on a journey of revelation. From skull to feet, via the face, spine, chest, arms, hands, pelvis and legs, she shows that each part of us has a tale to tell. What we eat, where we go, everything we do leaves a trace, a message that waits patiently for months, years, sometimes centuries, until a forensic anthropologist is called upon to decipher it.Some of this information is easily understood, some holds its secrets tight and needs scientific cajoling to be released. But by carefully piecing together the evidence, the facts of a life can be rebuilt. Limb by limb, case by case – some criminal, some historical, some unaccountably bizarre – Sue Black reconstructs with intimate sensitivity and compassion the hidden stories in what we leave behind.

    Created primarily for medical and premedical students, 'Neuroscience' emphasizes the structure of the nervous system, the correlation of structure and function, and the structure/function relationships particularly pertinent to the practice of medicine.

    Some parts of it are still mysteries to science and much is a mystery to the average person on the street. But we've come a long way from the sketches and diagrams drawn by the first anatomists in Ancient Greece. New medical procedures and imaging techniques have allowed "access all areas", revealing incredible detail and providing a much deeper understanding of how our bodies work. Making full use of all the latest knowledge, The Complete Human Body is the definitive guide to the development, form, function, and disorders of the human body, illustrated withunprecedented clarity by new computer-generated artworks and the latest medical and microscopic imaging.The Complete Human Body consists of five chapters. The first provides an overview of the human as an organism, covering human evolution, genetics, and the composition of the body. The second chapter explores human anatomy, looking at the body region by region (head and neck; thorax; abdomen and pelvis; upper arm; forearm and hand; hip and thigh; lower leg). The third chapter explores and explains how the body works, from individual organs to whole systems. Chapters four and five trace the human life cycle from zygote to old age, and profile the major diseases and disorders that can affect us.ContentsPRELIMS (5pp)1. INTEGRATED BODY (20pp)Human evolution - from our primate ancestors to modern humans.The human genome - our unique genetic makeup.Body composition - what the body is made up of.The complete human - how body systems work together to maintain health and equilibrium.2. ANATOMY (240pp)Body Systems - an overview of the anatomy of the body systems:Skin, hair, and nailsSkeletal systemMuscular systemNervous systemCardiovascular systemLymphatic systemEndocrine systemRespiratory systemDigestive systemUrinary systemReproductive systemAnatomy atlas - a detailed look at the anatomy of the human body, organized by body regions:Head and neckTorso (divided into thorax and abdomen)Shoulder and arm (divided into upper and lower)Hip and leg (divided into upper and lower)3. HOW THE BODY WORKS (120pp)Skin, hair, and nails: includes skin functions,skin renewal, skin healing, hair growth.Skeletal system: includes bone functions, bone growth, making blood vessels, different types of joint, cartilages and ligaments, functions of the skull, functions of the spine, ribs, sternum, and pelvis.Muscular system: includes muscle functions, different types of muscle, how muscles work.Nervous system: includes nerve impulses, nerve regeneration, central nervous system, brain functions, the limbic system, the hypothalamus, peripheral nervous system, autonomic nervous system, voluntary and involuntary responses, reflexes, the senses.Cardiovascular system: includes blood functions, blood formation, how the heart works, circulation, arteries and veins.Endocrine system: includes gland functions, hormone secretion, how hormones work, triggers,controls, feedback.Lymphatic and immune system: includes body defenses, non-specific and specific responses, types and functions of white cells, fighting infections, spleen functions.Respiratory system: includes breathing, how the lungs work, gas exchange, vocalization, sneezing and coughing.Digestive system: includes teeth and chewing, production and function of saliva, swallowing, how the stomach works, function of the intestines, how the liver works, processing nutrients.Urinary system: includes blood filtration, blood volume and pressure regulation, producing urine, urine removal.Reproductive system: includes production of sperm and seminal fluid, female reproductive system, sexual intercourse, milk production.4. LIFE CYCLE (46pp) - covers our development from conception to old age.Includes life cycle overview, inheritance and genes, conception and embryo development,fetal development, changes in the mother during pregnancy, labor and birth, newborn babies, childhood, puberty and adolescence, the aging process and death.5. DISEASES AND DISORDERS (60pp) - profiles the major diseases and disorders; organized by system.INDEX (12pp)GLOSSARY (7pp)ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (2pp)

    It will make you angry. It will amaze you with the courage of some of the people described in the book...The Autoimmune Epidemic is every bit as compelling as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle...It is also every bit as necessary as An Inconvenient Truth.... You will leave this book with no reservations about the veracity of the conclusions: put simply, there is no doubt that autoimmune diseases are on the rise and increasing environmental exposures of toxins and chemicals is fueling this rise. The research is sound. The conclusions unassailable.... Reading The Autoimmune Epidemic is a necessary first step. Reading The Autoimmune Epidemic is a life-altering event. It needs to be."

    Within a few short decades the most hostile of the world’s environments had all been conquered. Likewise, in the twentieth century, medicine transformed human life. Doctors took what was routinely fatal and made it survivable. As modernity brought us ever more into different kinds of extremis, doctors pushed the bounds of medical advances and human endurance. Extreme exploration challenged the body in ways that only the vanguard of science could answer. Doctors, scientists, and explorers all share a defining trait: they push on in the face of grim odds. Because of their extreme exploration we not only understand our physiology better; we have also made enormous strides in the science of healing.Drawing on his own experience as an anesthesiologist, intensive care expert, and NASA adviser, Dr. Kevin Fong examines how cuttingedge medicine pushes the envelope of human survival by studying the human body’s response when tested by physical extremes. Extreme Medicine explores different limits of endurance and the lens each offers on one of the systems of the body. The challenges of Arctic exploration created opportunities for breakthroughs in open heart surgery; battlefield doctors pioneered techniques for skin grafts, heart surgery, and trauma care; underwater and outer space exploration have revolutionized our understanding of breathing, gravity, and much more. Avant-garde medicine is fundamentally changing our ideas about the nature of life and death.Through astonishing accounts of extraordinary events and pioneering medicine, Fong illustrates the sheer audacity of medical practice at extreme limits, where human life is balanced on a knife’s edge. Extreme Medicine is a gripping debut about the science of healing, but also about exploration in its broadest sense—and about how, by probing the very limits of our biology, we may ultimately return with a better appreciation of how our bodies work, of what life is, and what it means to be human.

    From Simon & Schuster, Virus Ground Zero is Ed Regis' fascinating book about stalking the many killer viruses with The Center for Disease Control.An acclaimed science writer takes readers behind the scenes at the Centers for Disease Control to tell the story of an engrossing odyssey across the viral frontier.

    In three successive waves, from 1918 to 1919, influenza killed more than 50 million people. German soldiers termed it Blitzkatarrh, British soldiers referred to it as Flanders Grippe, but world-wide, the pandemic gained the notorious title of “Spanish Flu." Nowhere on earth escaped: the United States recorded 550,000 deaths (five times its total military fatalities in the war), while European deaths totaled more than two million.Amid the war, some governments suppressed news of the outbreak. Even as entire battalions were decimated, with both the Allies and the Germans suffering massive casualties, the details of many servicemen’s deaths were hidden to protect public morale. Meanwhile, civilian families were being struck down in their homes. Philadelphia ran out of gravediggers and coffins, and mass burial trenches had to be excavated with steam shovels. Spanish flu conjured up the specter of the Black Death of 1348 and the great plague of 1665, while the medical profession, shattered after five terrible years of conflict, lacked the resources to contain and defeat this new enemy. Through primary and archival sources, historian Catharine Arnold gives readers the first truly global account of this terrible epidemic.

    But in a world full of poisons, there was also an urgent practical need to name and recognize different plants, because most medicines were made from plant extracts.Anna Pavord takes us on a thrilling adventure into botanical history, traveling from Athens in the third century BC, through Constantinople, Venice, the medical school at Salerno to the universities of Pisa and Padua. The journey, traced here for the first time, involves the culture of Islam, the first expeditions to the Indies and the first settlers in the New World.In Athens, Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus was the first man ever to write a book about plants. How can we name, sort, and order them? He asked. The debate continues still, two thousand years later. Sumptuously illustrated in full colour, The Naming of Names gives a compelling insight into a world full of intrigue and intensely competitive egos.

    This text has invited more than 4 million students into the study of this dynamic and essential discipline.The authors have restructured each chapter around a conceptual framework of five or six big ideas. An Overview draws students in and sets the stage for the rest of the chapter, each numbered Concept Head announces the beginning of a new concept, and Concept Check questions at the end of each chapter encourage students to assess their mastery of a given concept. New Inquiry Figures focus students on the experimental process, and new Research Method Figures illustrate important techniques in biology. Each chapter ends with a Scientific Inquiry Question that asks students to apply scientific investigation skills to the content of the chapter.

    The essential introduction to the practice of history - revised with new features to ensure it is even more popular with students.Tosh is consistently the best-selling Longman History textbook.The last 3 editions have achieved total sales of over 83,000 copies.The use of photos of significant people and events help make the text more lively.New layout and design enables readers to understand themes more quickly.