He was sleek and prosperous, with a dainty goatee. Though he smiled reassuringly, the poet noticed that he kept a safe distance. In a soothing, urbane voice, the physician explained the treatment: stewed prunes to evacuate the bowels; succulent meats to ease digestion; cinnabar and the sweating tub to cleanse the disease from the skin. The doctor warned of minor side effects: uncontrolled drooling, fetid breath, bloody gums, shakes and palsies. Yet desperate diseases called for desperate remedies, of course.Were Shakespeare's shaky handwriting, his obsession with venereal disease, and his premature retirement connected? Did John Milton go blind from his propaganda work for the Puritan dictator Oliver Cromwell, as he believed, or did he have a rare and devastating complication of a very common eye problem? Did Jonathan Swift's preoccupation with sex and filth result from a neurological condition that might also explain his late-life surge in creativity? What Victorian plague wiped out the entire Brontë family? What was the cause of Nathaniel Hawthorne's sudden demise? Were Herman Melville's disabling attacks of eye and back pain the product of "nervous affections," as his family and physicians believed, or did he actually have a malady that was unknown to medical science until well after his death? Was Jack London a suicide, or was his death the product of a series of self-induced medical misadventures? Why did W. B. Yeats's doctors dose him with toxic amounts of arsenic? Did James Joyce need several horrific eye operations because of a strange autoimmune disease acquired from a Dublin streetwalker? Did writing Nineteen Eighty-Four actually kill George Orwell? The Bard meets House, M.D. in this fascinating untold story of the impact of disease on the lives and works of some the finest writers in the English language. In Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough, John Ross cheerfully debunks old biographical myths and suggests fresh diagnoses for these writers' real-life medical mysteries. The author takes us way back, when leeches were used for bleeding and cupping was a common method of cure, to a time before vaccinations, sterilized scalpels, or real drug regimens. With a healthy dose of gross descriptions and a deep love for the literary output of these ten greats, Ross is the doctor these writers should have had in their time of need.

    In this book, he builds on that theme by showing why this is the luckiest time yet to be alive, giving you the keys to the new kingdom of wellness.Medicine is undergoing rapid change. In the old world, you followed general principles and doctors treated you based on broad, one-size-fits all solutions. In this new golden age, you’ll be able to take full advantage of the latest scientific findings and leverage the power of technology to customize your care. Only those who know how to access and adapt to these breakthroughs—without being distracted by hyped ideas and bad medicine—will benefit. Imagine being able to get fit and lose weight without dieting, train your immune system to fight cancer, edit your DNA to avoid a certain fate, erase the risk of a heart attack, reverse aging, and know exactly which drugs to take to optimize health with zero side effects.That’s the picture of the future that you can enter starting today. Welcome to The Lucky Years.

    Facing such horrors, many patients ran with open arms to burgeoning practices that promised new ways to cure their ills. Hydropaths offered cures using “healing waters” and tight wet-sheet wraps. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby experimented with magnets and tried to replace “bad,” diseased thoughts with “good,” healthy thoughts, while Daniel David Palmer reportedly restored a man’s hearing by knocking on his vertebrae. Lorenzo and Lydia Fowler used their fingers to “read” their clients’ heads, claiming that the topography of one’s skull could reveal the intricacies of one’s character. Lydia Pinkham packaged her Vegetable Compound and made a famous family business from the homemade cure-all. And Samuel Thomson, rejecting traditional medicine, introduced a range of herbal remedies for a vast array of woes, supplemented by the curative powers of poetry.   Bizarre as these methods may seem, many are the precursors of today’s notions of healthy living. We have the nineteenth-century practice of “medical gymnastics” to thank for today’s emphasis on regular exercise, and hydropathy’s various water cures for the notion of regular bathing and the mantra to drink “eight glasses of water a day.” And much of the philosophy of health introduced by these alternative methods is reflected in today’s patient-centered care and holistic medicine, which takes account of the body and spirit. Moreover, these entrepreneurial alternative healers paved the way for women in medicine. Shunned by the traditionalists and eager for converts, many of the masters of these new fields embraced the training of women in their methods. Some women, like Pinkham, were able to break through the barriers to women working to become medical entrepreneurs themselves. In fact, next to teaching, medicine attracted more women than any other profession in the nineteenth century, the majority of them in “irregular” health systems.   These eccentric ideas didn’t make it into modern medicine without a fight, of course. As these new healing methods grew in popularity, traditional doctors often viciously attacked them with cries of “quackery” and pressed legal authorities to arrest, fine, and jail irregulars for endangering public safety. Nonetheless, these alternative movements attracted widespread support—from everyday Americans and the famous alike, including Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, and General Ulysses S. Grant—with their messages of hope, self-help, and personal empowerment.   Though many of these medical fads faded, and most of their claims of magical cures were discredited by advances in medical science, a surprising number of the theories and ideas behind the quackery are staples in today’s health industry. Janik tells the colorful stories of these “quacks,” whose oftentimes genuine wish to heal helped shape and influence modern medicine.

    With nutritional anthropology at its core, Dancing Skeletons presents informal, engaging, and oftentimes dramatic stories that relate the author's experiences conducting research on infant feeding and health in Mali.Through fascinating vignettes and honest, vivid descriptions, Dettwyler explores such diverse topics as ethnocentrism, culture shock, population control, breastfeeding, child care, the meaning of disability and child death in different cultures, female circumcision, women's roles in patrilineal societies, the dangers of fieldwork, and facing emotionally draining realities. Readers will laugh and cry as they meet the author's friends and informants, follow her through a series of encounters with both peri-urban and rural Bambara culture, and struggle with her as she attempts to reconcile her very different roles as objective ethnographer, subjective friend, and mother in the field.

    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.

    Extracted from opium, the sap of the poppy, this popular drug was welcomed into the homes of rich and poor alike, in the guise of medicinal uses in the form of laudanum and opium elixirs, and as pure, undisguised morphine.Laudanum contained opium, saffron, cinnamon and alcohol. In the spirit of 19th century progress, other opium concoctions were created and a whole industry in quackery erupted. In both Britain and North America, opium was mixed with everything imaginable: mercury, hashish, cayenne pepper, ether, chloroform, belladonna and whisky, sherry, wine and brandy.In the Arms of Morpheus examines how the drinking of laudanum for medical reasons developed and how it became an everyday safeguard against pain, poverty, and boredom. Opium eating was catapulted into fame by the confessions of Thomas De Quincy and insinuated itself into the lives and works of writers such as Louisa May Alcott, Lord Byron, Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Keats, the Brontes, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and many others.Thoroughly researched and copiously illustrated with photographs, engravings, advertisements, movie stills, pulp magazine and dime novel covers and paraphernalia, In the Arms of Morpheus continues the history of opium's emergence as an omnipresent and sometimes devastating influence.

    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.

    And it's even more difficult to feel relaxed when you stay awake worrying that you won't fall asleep. This vicious circle can quickly rob you of your quality of life, which is why it is so important to seek the most effective treatment for your insomnia. This workbook uses cognitive behavior therapy, which has been shown to work as well as sleep medications and produce longer-lasting effects. Research shows that it also works well for those whose insomnia is experienced in the context of anxiety, depression, and chronic pain. The complete program in Quiet Your Mind and Get to Sleep goes to the root of your insomnia and offers the same techniques used by experienced sleep specialists. You'll learn how to optimize your sleep pattern using methods to calm your mind and help you identify sleep-thieving behaviors that contribute to insomnia. Don't go without rest any longer-get started on this program and end your struggles with sleep. [This book] will no doubt help millions… as it clearly explains not only what to do, but also why.-William C. Dement, MD, Ph.D., author of The Promise of Sleep

    Barbara Ravage has fashioned an enlightening, invaluable book.” —Stewart O’Nan, author of The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American TragedyThough each of us is just a spark away from being a burn victim, the public knows little and understands less about the world that patients inhabit. Pulling the curtains back on this private and sterile environment, Burn Unit is a riveting account of the frontline efforts—both modern-day and historical—to save lives devastated by fire. With unflinching urgency, Barbara Ravage follows an extraordinary team of healers at Massachusetts General Hospital, the cradle of modern burn treatment and the site of one of the best burn units in the world. From Boston’s Cocoanut Grove fire of 1942 to the treatment of the victims of the Rhode Island nightclub fire in early 2003, we watch everyday heroes do their incredible but punishing work against the backdrop of history. Both a moving human drama and an engrossing scientific exploration of this little-known field of medicine, Burn Unit is an unforgettably powerful read.

    Broks fuses classic cases of neuropsychology with the his own case studies, philosophical debate, and thought provoking riffs and meditations on the nature of neurological impairments and dysfunctions.

    Its organization and thoroughness are unsurpassed, putting it above similar review books. Students who thoroughly read this book should have no trouble successfully completing their psychiatry clerkship and passing the shelf exam. As course director for the core psychiatry clerkship at my institution, I will recommend this book to students."--Doody's Review Service"First Aid for the Psychiatry Clerkship" gives you the core information needed to impress on the wards and pass the psychiatry clerkship exam. Written by students who know what it takes to succeed, and based on the national guidelines for the psychiatry clerkship, the book is filled with mnemonics, ward and exam tips, tables, clinical images, algorithms, and newly added mini-cases.Features Completely revised based on the psychiatry clerkship's core competencies Written by medical students who passed and reviewed by faculty for accuracy NEW integrated mini-cases illustrate classic patient presentations and/or commonly tested scenarios NEW illustrations and management algorithms Updated throughout with enhanced sections on medications, depression/anxiety, and child psychiatry Helps students hone in on the most important concepts for the clerkship and the examThe content you need to ace the clerkship: Section I: How to Succeed in the Psychiatry Clerkship Section II: High-Yield Facts; Examination and Diagnosis; Psychotic Disorders; Mood Disorders; Anxiety and Adjustment Disorders; Personality Disorders; Substance-Related Disorders; Cognitive Disorders; Geriatric Disorders; Psychiatric Disorders in Children; Dissociative Disorders; Somataform and Factitious Disorders; Impulse Control Disorders; Eating Disordes; Disorders; Sleep Disorders; Sexual Disorders; Psychtherapies; Psychopharmacology; Legal Issues; Section III: Awards and Opportunities.

    Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Caitlin soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Caitlin's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Caitlin argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).

    The psychiatric establishment and rehab industry in the Western world have branded addiction a brain disease. But in The Biology of Desire, cognitive neuroscientist and former addict Marc Lewis makes a convincing case that addiction is not a disease, and shows why the disease model has become an obstacle to healing. Lewis reveals addiction as an unintended consequence of the brain doing what it's supposed to do-seek pleasure and relief-in a world that's not cooperating. As a result, most treatment based on the disease model fails. Lewis shows how treatment can be retooled to achieve lasting recovery. This is enlightening and optimistic reading for anyone who has wrestled with addiction either personally or professionally.

    Drawing on personal and professional experience, Stephen Shore, who is currently completing his doctoral degree in special education, combines three voices to create a touching and, at the same time, highly informative book for professionals as well as individuals who have Asperger Syndrome. Get a unique perspective on AS across the years!

    He traces LSD's path from a promising psychiatric research medicine to a recreational drug sparking hysteria and prohibition. We follow Dr. Hofmann's trek across Mexico to discover sacred plants related to LSD, and listen in as he corresponds with other notable figures about his remarkable discovery. Underlying it all is Dr. Hofmann's powerful conclusion that mystical experience may be our planet's best hope for survival. Whether induced by LSD, meditation, or arising spontaneously, such experiences help us to comprehend "the wonder, the mystery of the divine‹in the microcosm of the atom, in the macrocosm of the spiral nebula, in the seeds of plants, in the body and soul of people." More than sixty years after the birth of Albert Hofmann's problem child, his vision of its true potential is more relevant, and more needed, than ever.