Taking the Medicine: A Short History of Medicine’s Beautiful Idea, and our Difficulty Swallowing It

by Druin Burch

Doctors and patients alike trust the medical profession and its therapeutic powers; yet this trust has often been misplaced. Whether prescribing opium or thalidomide, aspirin or antidepressants, doctors have persistently failed to test their favourite ideas - often with catastrophic results. From revolutionary America to Nazi Germany and modern big-pharmaceuticals, this is the unexpected story of just how bad medicine has been, and of its remarkably recent effort to improve.

It is the history of well-meaning doctors misled by intuition, of the startling human cost of their mistakes and of the exceptional individuals who have helped make things better. Alarming and optimistic, Taking the Medicine is essential reading for anyone interested in how and why to trust the pills they swallow.

Genres: History, Medicine, Medical, Nonfiction, Science, Health

337 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 15, 2009

Reviews

[Antonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who'd have thought a history of medicine would be such a page-turner? This is really a great book. Brilliant. It's full of fascinating stories about the development and testing (or not) of life-saving drugs. But the main theme is the long, slow process by which the practice of medicine has come to be based on sound research and reliable tests -- at least more so than in most of the past few centuries -- as well as a persistent reliance on opinion and intuition and resistance to fact, experimentation, and evidence. It's shocking, really, how little has been truly known in all this time.

[Natasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really clever and most chapters were quite interesting. I learnt a lot. It wasn't riveting but it was, generally, insightful. Props to the author for research well done!

[Ereel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great run-through of history of Western medicine

[E. Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't get my nose out of it, nor get it out of my thoughts since putting it down. I loved Roy Porter's history of medicine - which Birch is harsh about - and this seemed a wonderful companion. Shorter and with more of a focus, Birch's story is about how little of medicine has done any good, why it is doctors have been so professionally successful while killing most of their patients, and what's finally changed. In essence it's a story about how difficult it is to know whether a treatment works - not because the science is intellectually difficult, but because it's emotionally so hard not to trust your intuition. It zipped along entertainingly but packed a thoughful punch.

[Edward]

Nassim Taleb commented on this book: "Telling people NOT to smoke seems to be the greatest medical contribution of the last 60 years. Druin Burch, in the recently published Taking the Medicine

The harmful effect of smoking are roughly equivalent to the combined good ones of EVERY medical intervention developed since the war. (...) Getting rid of smoking provides more benefit than being able to cure people of every possible type of cancer"

[Jacqui · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read written in an informative engaging manner. I think a must for all who have the first seeds of following a medical career to learn humility is the best self medication before they rely on their own self importance.

[Oscar Castanedo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book helped me to better understand the progress of medicine in the history of humankind. It was an eye opener. We have taken only baby steps here. Much to improve in the future.

[Francis Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A terrific read, although it is about our relationship with medicine, doctors, etc, it is actually about our mental approach to illness and disease and how that approach colours our judgement.

[Merrick]

The most interesting book I read in years.

[E.M. Epps · Rating 5 out of 5]

If the history of medicine, in the specific sense of "things we take to feel better"--from opium to thalidomide, penicillin to aspirin--sounds at all interesting to you, read this book. That won't apply to most of you, of course. But it was exactly the right opiate for me, and I binge-read the whole book in one day. The author--you get the sense he's a doctor first and a historian second--has a pleasing impatience for quackery both historical and modern. In addition to being a history of specific drugs, Taking the Medicine is also, inextricably, the history of the scientific method. The majority of doctors throughout history have probably had the best of intentions, but that hasn't stopped them from killing a lot more people than they've helped: a situation that changed only quite recently. Possible side effects of this book: a healthy passion for double-blind trials.

One of the papyri that Smith bought suggested mixing willow with figs, dates and beer to 'cause the heart to receive bread.' (The Egyptians used 'bread' as a synonym for all sorts of fine things. Their daily greeting for each other was a cheerful wish for 'Bread and beer!' meaning pretty much everything in life that was good.) The historian of aspirin commented that 'many of their superstitions, reasoning and treatments are based on concepts that are alien to us'. That is true, but it is not what really matters. The Egyptians considered their doctors and their medicines as being potent and effective. Their practices show something different. These papyri, the oldest proper medical instructions of our species, contained potions and salves and drugs whose effectiveness was a fantasy. Traditional knowledge of healing was not reliable. The first doctors in the world were frauds. This was a remarkable beginning for any profession, even more so for one that has always delighted in a special trust. For the next three and a half thousand years, little changed.

[W · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hospital doctor looks at the use of drugs in medicine. He starts with a historical overview before focusing on persistent problems which still allow insufficiently tested harmful drugs to be released. Reasons are doctors who prescribe because they think it's better than not offering any help, unpublished negative test results and not enough good large studies.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you blindly trust your doctor to take care of your health and wisely prescribe your medication then you might not want to read this book. If, on the other hand, you want to read a well-written history of medicine and the foibles and mis-steps of the medical profession then this is the book for you. An absolutely fascinating page turner.

[Science For The People]

Recommended on Skeptically Speaking show #90 on December 17, 2010. http://skepticallyspeaking.ca/episode...

[Patrick Crawley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of the brief history of medicine's evidential basis. Scary when you realize how recently it was that doctors really had no clue what they were doing.

[Anne Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written easy to read, well-researched, and right up my alley. Met my expectations.