Book picks similar to
Epidemics and the Modern World by Mitchell Hammond
history
medical
nonfiction
non-fiction
Unlocking Lyme: Myths, Truths, and Practical Solutions for Chronic Lyme Disease
William Rawls - 2017
Bill Rawls understands Lyme disease sufferers seeking clarity and relief because, like myself, he has experienced the pain and frustration firsthand. Through this ground-breaking book, he shares everything he has discovered on his journey to reclaiming his health... it may just be the answer you've been waiting for." – Neil Spector, MD, Author of Gone in a Heartbeat Lyme disease is one of the most puzzling illnesses on the planet. Anyone who has suffered from its debilitating symptoms knows the frustrations of trying to find a cure. Many sufferers drag themselves from one doctor or alternative practitioner to the next, getting lost in a maze of lab tests, prescription drugs, and treatments. Thousands of dollars and months (or years) later, they realize they are no better off than where they started. Unlocking Lyme puts an end to this desperate quest. Written by Dr. Bill Rawls, a physician who overcame Lyme disease himself, this book is a comprehensive, practical resource full of solutions that work. What took Dr. Rawls 10 years to learn through intense research and personal experience, you can now learn and implement in a matter of months. DR. RAWLS’ STORY Dr. Rawls was in the middle of a successful OB/GYN career when Lyme disease interrupted his life. In his struggle to overcome it, he explored every treatment option – from conventional medicine to the full range of alternative therapies. Ultimately, he embraced modern herbal therapy as his preferred solution, but he recognizes that the path may be different for each person. INSIDE THE BOOK Unlocking Lyme is the sum of Dr. Rawls’ experience, research, and practical solutions to date. The book is divided into four parts, each part addressing a critical aspect of recovery: PART 1 - Provides an overview of common misconceptions about what Lyme disease is (hint: it’s more than just a tick bite and Borrelia infection) PART 2 - Provides information on how to obtain a diagnosis, despite current limitations in diagnostic testing for Lyme PART 3 - Discusses limitations of long-term antibiotic use, and offers an overview of holistic and non-toxic therapies for healing and symptom control (including pain, depression, insomnia) PART 4 - Explains how to embrace a healthier lifestyle so you can stay well; learn how to strengthen your immune system, microbiome, and balance in your body In the years since his recovery, Dr. Rawls has helped thousands of patients find their path to healing from Lyme disease. Unlocking Lyme brings together Dr. Rawls’ accumulated knowledge and is the key you need to get your life back. TESTIMONIALS “Dr. Rawls understands the misery of chronic Lyme disease firsthand. Unlocking Lyme shares the approaches that he used to successfully recover his own health, and helps the reader understand that there is so much that can be done to regain a state of wellness and optimal health.” – Scott Forsgren Editor & Founder, BetterHealthGuy.com “Dr. Rawls has spoken on his approach to Lyme disease for the past several years; his comprehensive approach and lifestyle guidance has helped many of our members. We heartily endorse his approach to helping deal with the symptoms of Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses.” – John Dorney, President NC Lyme Disease Foundation "Unlocking Lyme delves into the science behind Lyme disease, explaining what it is, but more importantly how it can be overcome. Dr. Rawls carefully explains the various treatments for Lyme, leaving the reader feeling informed and empowered.
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Siddhartha Mukherjee - 2010
Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with - and perished from - for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist. From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave cut off her malignant breast, to the nineteenth-century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through fiercely demanding regimens in order to survive—and to increase our understanding of this iconic disease. Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.
Heart: A History
Sandeep Jauhar - 2018
It’s so bound up with our deepest feelings that emotional trauma causes it to change shape.Practising cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar beautifully weaves his own experiences with the defining discoveries of the past to tell the story of our most vital organ. He looks at some of the pioneers who risked their careers and their patients’ lives to better understand the heart. People like Daniel Hale Williams, who performed the world’s first documented heart surgery, and Wilson Greatbatch, who accidentally invented the pacemaker.Amid gripping scenes from the operating theatre, Jauhar interweaves stories about the patients he’s treated with the moving tale of his family’s own history of heart problems, from his grandfather’s sudden death in India – an event that sparked his life-long obsession – to the ominous signs of how he himself might die.He also confronts the limits of medical technology and argues that future progress will be determined more by how we choose to live rather than by any device we invent.
House on Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox
William H. Foege - 2011
Part autobiography, part mystery, the story is told by a man who was one of the architects of a radical vaccination scheme that became a key strategy in ending the horrible disease when it was finally contained in India. In House on Fire, William H. Foege describes his own experiences in public health and details the remarkable program that involved people from countries around the world in pursuit of a single objective—eliminating smallpox forever. Rich with the details of everyday life, as well as a few adventures, House on Fire gives an intimate sense of what it is like to work on the ground in some of the world’s most impoverished countries—and tells what it is like to contribute to programs that really do change the world.
Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe
William Rosen - 2007
In his capital at Constantinople he built the world's most beautiful building, married its most powerful empress, and wrote its most enduring legal code, seemingly restoring Rome's fortunes for the next five hundred years. Then, in the summer of 542, he encountered a flea. The ensuing outbreak of bubonic plague killed five thousand people a day in Constantinople and nearly killed Justinian himself. In Justinian's Flea, William Rosen tells the story of history's first pandemic plague seven centuries before the Black Death that killed tens of millions, devastated the empires of Persia and Rome, left a path of victims from Ireland to Iraq, and opened the way for the armies of Islam. Weaving together evolutionary microbiology, economics, military strategy, ecology, and ancient and modern medicine, Rosen offers a sweeping narrative of one of the great hinge moments in history, one that will appeal to readers of John Kelly's The Great Mortality, John Barry's The Great Influenza, and Jared Diamond's Collapse .
A Woman in Residence
Michelle Harrison - 1982
Michelle Harrison kept throughout her months of residency in OB/GYN--draws us into the serious and thrilling work of delivering new life into the world...and into Dr. Harrison's own struggle to reconcile the often startling difference between patient care and hospital convenience. She writes about her patients, for whom she never had quite enough time; about her colleagues, with whom she did not always agree; about the excitement of learning new procedures; about the pressures that never let up. She brings us as close as most of us are likely to come to the intense inner life of a big hospital."
Plague: A Story of Science, Rivalry, and the Scourge That Won't Go Away
Edward Marriott - 2003
Edward Marriott’s dramatic, gripping new book gives you yet another thing to worry about.” —New York Plague. The very word carries an unholy resonance. No other disease can claim its apocalyptic power: it can lie dormant for centuries, only to resurface with nation-killing force. Here, with the high drama of an adventure tale, Edward Marriott unravels the story of this lethal disease: the historic battle to identify its source, the devastating effects of pandemics, and the prospects for new outbreaks. Marriott begins the trail in Hong Kong in the summer of 1894, when a plague diagnosis brought to the island two top scientists—Alexandre Yersin, a maverick Frenchman, and his Japanese rival, Shibasaburo Kitasato. Marriott interweaves the narrative of their fierce competition with vivid scenes of the scourge’s persistence: California in 1900; Surat, India, in 1994; and New York City sometime in the future.A masterly account of medical and human history, Plague is at once an instructive warning and a chilling read.
Stem Cell Therapy: A Rising Tide: How Stem Cells Are Disrupting Medicine and Transforming Lives
Neil H. Riordan - 2017
When there aren’t enough of them, or they aren’t working properly, chronic diseases can manifest and persist. From industry leaders, sport stars, and Hollywood icons to thousands of everyday, ordinary people, stem cell therapy has helped when standard medicine failed. Many of them had lost hope. These are their stories. Neil H Riordan, author of MSC: Clinical Evidence Leading Medicine’s Next Frontier, the definitive textbook on clinical stem cell therapy, brings you an easy-to-read book about how and why stem cells work, and why they’re the wave of the future. “Neil takes readers on a riveting journey through the past, present and future of stem cell therapy. His well-researched, educational and entertaining book could change your life. I highly recommend it.” Tony Robbins, NY Times #1 Bestselling Author 100 years old will soon become the new 60. Stem cells are a key therapeutic to enable this future. Dr. Riordan’s book is your guide to why this is true and how you will benefit. A must read for anyone who cares about extending their healthy lifespan.” Peter H. Diamandis, MD; Founder, XPRIZE & Singularity University; Co-Founder, Human Longevity, Inc.; Author of NY Times Best Sellers Abundance and Bold
Killer Germs: Microbes and Diseases That Threaten Humanity
Barry E. Zimmerman - 2002
From biblical plagues, to the AIDS crisis, to supergerms of the future, this updated and revised edition of the original covers the whole gamut of diseases that have threatened humanity since its origins.It also includes a new chapter on the history of bioterrorism and the deplorable role it has played and is likely to play in the phenomenal diversity of diseases.
God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science
James Hannam - 2009
The adjective 'medieval' has become a synonym for brutality and uncivilized behavior. Yet without the work of medieval scholars there could have been no Galileo, no Newton and no Scientific Revolution. In God's Philosophers, James Hannam debunks many of the myths about the Middle Ages, showing that medieval people did not think the earth is flat, nor did Columbus 'prove' that it is a sphere; the Inquisition burnt nobody for their science nor was Copernicus afraid of persecution; no Pope tried to ban human dissection or the number zero. God's Philosophers is a celebration of the forgotten scientific achievements of the Middle Ages - advances which were often made thanks to, rather than in spite of, the influence of Christianity and Islam. Decisive progress was also made in technology: spectacles and the mechanical clock, for instance, were both invented in thirteenth-century Europe. Charting an epic journey through six centuries of history, God's Philosophers brings back to light the discoveries of neglected geniuses like John Buridan, Nicole Oresme and Thomas Bradwardine, as well as putting into context the contributions of more familiar figures like Roger Bacon, William of Ockham and Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic
Ben Westhoff - 2019
is the first deep-dive investigation of a hazardous and illicit industry that has created a worldwide epidemic, ravaging communities and overwhelming and confounding government agencies that are challenged to combat it. "A whole new crop of chemicals is radically changing the recreational drug landscape," writes Ben Westhoff. "These are known as Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) and they include replacements for known drugs like heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana. They are synthetic, made in a laboratory, and are much more potent than traditional drugs"--and all-too-often tragically lethal. Drugs like fentanyl, K2, and Spice--and those with arcane acronyms like 25i-NBOMe-- were all originally conceived in legitimate laboratories for proper scientific and medicinal purposes. Their formulas were then hijacked and manufactured by rogue chemists, largely in China, who change their molecular structures to stay ahead of the law, making the drugs' effects impossible to predict. Westhoff has infiltrated this shadowy world, becoming the first journalist to report from inside an illicit Chinese fentanyls lab and providing startling and original reporting on how China's vast chemical industry operates, and how the Chinese government subsidizes it. He tracks down the little-known scientists who invented these drugs and inadvertently killed thousands, as well as a mysterious drug baron who turned the law upside down in his home country of New Zealand. Poignantly, Westhoff chronicles the lives of addicted users and dealers, families of victims, law enforcement officers, and underground drug awareness organizers in the U.S. and Europe. Together they represent the shocking and riveting full anatomy of a calamity we are just beginning to understand. From its depths, as Westhoff relates, are emerging new strategies that may provide essential long-term solutions to the drug crisis that has affected so many.
Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague
David K. Randall - 2019
His passing on March 6, 1900, would have been unremarkable if a city health officer hadn’t noticed a swollen black lymph node on his groin—a sign of bubonic plague. Empowered by racist pseudoscience, officials rushed to quarantine Chinatown while doctors examined Wong’s tissue for telltale bacteria. If the devastating disease was not contained, San Francisco would become the American epicenter of an outbreak that had already claimed ten million lives worldwide.To local press, railroad barons, and elected officials, such a possibility was inconceivable—or inconvenient. As they mounted a cover-up to obscure the threat, ending the career of one of the most brilliant scientists in the nation in the process, it fell to federal health officer Rupert Blue to save a city that refused to be rescued. Spearheading a relentless crusade for sanitation, Blue and his men patrolled the squalid streets of fast-growing San Francisco, examined gory black buboes, and dissected diseased rats that put the fate of the entire country at risk.In the tradition of Erik Larson and Steven Johnson, Randall spins a spellbinding account of Blue’s race to understand the disease and contain its spread—the only hope of saving San Francisco, and the nation, from a gruesome fate.
A License to Heal: Random Memories of an ER Doctor
Steven Bentley - 2014
is an American Board of Emergency Medicine certified ED doctor. His journey began in the mid-1970s, when he chose to pursue a career in medicine. In his youthful perspective, he came to regard doctors as the good guys, the ones who healed people and saved lives. He knew he’d be one of those good guys one day. Now, with a career spanning more than thirty years, he works as an emergency-room physician in North Carolina. In A License to Heal: Random Memories of an ER Doctor, Bentley describes the real world of emergency medicine from the viewpoint of a practicing physician. This memoir is filled with real-life stories of the ER, including life and death, triumph and tragedy. Meet a man named Solomon Darby, who spoke to long-dead relatives during his own near-death experience. Bentley also recalls the heartbreaking story of a young widow who desperately needed to understand and cope with the death of her husband. Amid the grief, there are also episodes of great humor and human comedy. In the dynamic world of emergency medicine, there is a great deal of pain, blood, and tragedy, but there is also hope, compassion, and excitement—for both the patients and the staff."
Between Hope and Fear: A History of Vaccines and Human Immunity
Michael Kinch - 2018
While detailing the history of vaccine invention, Kinch reveals the ominous reality that our victories against vaccine-preventable diseases are not permanent—and could easily be undone. In the tradition of John Barry’s The Great Influenza and Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies, Between Hope and Fear relates the remarkable intersection of science, technology and disease that has helped eradicate many of the deadliest plagues known to man.
The Cigarette: A Political History
Sarah Milov - 2019
From Jamestown to the Marlboro Man, the plant occupied the heart of the nation’s economy and expressed its enduring myths. But today smoking rates have declined and smokers are exiled from many public spaces. The story of tobacco’s fortunes may seem straightforward: science triumphed over our addictive habits and the cynical machinations of tobacco executives. Yet the reality is more complicated. Both the cigarette’s popularity and its eventual decline reflect a parallel course of shifting political priorities. The tobacco industry flourished with the help of the state, but it was the concerted efforts of citizen nonsmokers who organized to fight for their right to clean air that led to its undoing.After the Great Depression, public officials and organized tobacco farmers worked together to ensure that the government’s regulatory muscle was more often deployed to promote tobacco than to protect the public from its harms. Even as evidence of the cigarette’s connection to cancer grew, medical experts could not convince officials to change their stance. What turned the tide, Sarah Milov argues, was a new kind of politics: a movement for nonsmokers’ rights. Activists and public-interest lawyers took to the courts, the streets, city councils, and boardrooms to argue for smoke-free workplaces and allied with scientists to lobby elected officials.The Cigarette restores politics to its rightful place in the tale of tobacco’s rise and fall, illustrating America’s continuing battles over corporate influence, individual responsibility, collective choice, and the scope of governmental power.