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The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present
Medicine advances ever faster, and with it not just a capacity to overcome sickness, but to transform the very nature of life. Starting in ancient antiquity, this text charts how this health revolution came about and how life for human beings in the West has ceased, in Hobbes' memorable phrase, to be "nasty, brutish and short." Porter plots the growth of medical specialisms - pharmacology, physiology, anatomy, neurology, bacteriology - and the institutions of medicine - the hospital and asylum - to show how medical advances have often created as many problems as they have solved. The book also shows how the ancient Egyptians treated incipient baldness with a mixture of hippopotamus, lion, crocodile, goose, snake and ibex fat; how a mystery epidemic devastated ancient Athens and brought to an end the domination of that great city; and how lemons did as much as Nelson to defeat Napolean.
832 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Roy Porter
227 books131 followersRoy's books cover several fields: the history of geology, London, 18th-Century British ideas and society, medicine, madness, quackery, patients and practitioners, literature and art, on which subjects (and others) he published over 200 books are articles.
List of works can be found @ wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Porter )
List of works can be found @ wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Porter )
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
June 18, 2017
Smallpox patient, Bangladesh, 1973
The defects of this book are many, but it would hurt to give it less than four stars and, the avoidance of pain being one of Porter's main themes, I will stick to a suitably thematic rating. There are delights aplenty to be mined in this compendious history, and a myriad reasons, if you still needed any, to fall down on your knees and give thanks that we live in an age of anaesthetic and antibiotics.
Things have certainly come a long way since – to pick an example almost at random from the early pages – doctors were recommending crocodile-dung pessaries as a form of contraception, as they were in Pharaonic Egypt. (Presumably they worked on the principle that they were a serious mood-killer.) And in general, you're left with a strong impression of quite how slow and painstaking progress has been: every basic drug and vitamin pill today, every vaccination and course of antibiotics, is founded on a centuries-long, incremental advance in knowledge that often took several steps backwards for every shuffle forwards.
In 1826, two Italians finally identify the pain-relieving element salicin in willow-bark; it's purified three years later by a French chemist; meanwhile, a Swiss pharmacist extracts a related substance from meadowsweet, and a German researcher uses it to obtain salicylic acid; Gerhardt works out its molecular structure in 1853, and Hoffmann finally synthesises it as acetylsalicylic acid which, in 1899, is renamed aspirin. Similar stories can be retailed for any other substance, and they give you an idea of the scale of knowledge that is being casually discarded by the sort of people who rail against "unnatural" chemicals.
Porter is at his best when he slows down long enough to make these narratives clear. When he fails to do so, the book can rattle through names and dates at a bit of a gallop – the chapters devoted to non-Western forms of medicine in particular, while welcome, seem especially cursory. Luckily, Porter has a great flair for making the kind of quick, thumbnail biographies that a book like this depends on – take, for instance, this potted story of one of the pioneers of dental anaesthesia:
In December 1844, the dentist Horace Wells (1815–48) went to a fair in Hartford, Connecticut, where ‘Professor’ Gardner Colton (1814–98) was giving an exhibition of ‘Exhilarating or Laughing Gas’. Curious whether it could be used for painless tooth extraction, Wells offered himself: Colton administered the gas while Dr John Riggs yanked out a molar. ‘A new era of tooth-pulling!’ Wells exclaimed, on coming round. Eager to exploit his breakthrough, he built a laughing-gas apparatus: a bellows with a tube stuck into the patient's mouth. Demonstrating it in the dentistry class of John C. Warren (1778–1856) at the Massachusetts General Hospital, he botched the procedure, however, and his patient suffered agony. Wells lost medical support, grew depressed, became addicted to chloroform and, after arrest in New York for hurling sulphuric acid at two prostitutes, committed suicide in jail.
Well, that escalated quickly…
Another theme that becomes clear is how far research is in advance of effective treatment. This is something we're familiar with today, when hardly a week seems to go by without another cancer breakthrough in mice or Alzheimer's regression in lab samples, yet seemingly without any practical results ever filtering through to humans in hospitals. Such has always been the case. Matthew Baillie was already complaining about it in the eighteenth century: ‘I know better perhaps than another man, from my knowledge of anatomy, how to discover disease, but when I have done so, I don't know better how to cure it.’ This sense of what Porter calls ‘medicine's Sisyphean strife’ is especially acute in the age of antibiotics, which can't be developed nearly as fast as bacteria can evolve immunity.
Then again, before bacteria were understood, things were infinitely worse. Indeed before Joseph Lister introduced the idea of germ theory, sepsis was astonishingly prevalent. Doctors would waltz in off the street, chuck a bloody apron on over their clothes, and start operating, perhaps with a quick rinse of the hands if you were lucky. There are stories in here of doctors needing a plaster, and simply opening a drawer filled to the brim with plasters of every kind that had been used and reused on patients suffering from every imaginable disease, and then just put back in the drawer after use. As a consequence, surgery was insanely risky. ‘Every single one of the seventy amputations the aged Nélaton performed during the Commune (1871) resulted in death.’
The vast historical sweep offered by a book like this also allows you to see many familiar things in a new way. Nicholas Culpeper, for instance, whose Herbal sits on my shelves and whom I had always vaguely imagined to be a kind of staid proto-botanist, is here presented as part of a grand anarchic tradition of ‘Paracelsan iatrochemistry’, which was all about promoting the values of homespun wisdom against the hegemonic early equivalent of Big Pharma (namely, the College of Physicians). I also see that homoeopathy, with its stress on purity and minimal dosage, seems a lot less ridiculous in the context of the huge, almost unregulated cocktails of drugs that were being sloshed about when it was developed in the eighteenth century.
As for the state of modern medicine, Porter (writing twenty years ago) is circumspect but downbeat. Medicine, he notes, ‘has bedded down with authority in the modern state’, and the huge advances in medical science have only shifted the focus from acute to chronic diseases. ‘Its triumphs are dissolving in disorientations.’ In the United States in particular, he is alarmed by the free-market capitalist approach: ‘Medical consumerism – like all sorts of consumerism, but more menacingly – is designed to be unsatisfying.’ And this is linked to a creeping pathologisation of normal life.
The root of the trouble is structural. It is endemic to a system in which an expanding medical establishment, faced with a healthier population, is driven to medicalising normal events like menopause, converting risks into diseases, and treating trivial complaints with fancy procedures. Doctors and ‘consumers’ are becoming locked within a fantasy that everyone has something wrong with them, everyone and everything can be cured.
Here we see again one of Porter's most admirable qualities – his focus on patients. This is not just a history of medical research, but a history also of the way doctors behave towards the public, and the relationships we have with our bodies and with our medical experts. Porter – presenting himself too as an expert – is well aware that being nice is not necessarily what people want. I detected a hint of approbation in his anecdote about the English surgeon John Abernethy, who was apparently in the habit of barking at fat ladies, ‘Madam, buy a skipping-rope’ – ‘yet,’ Porter notes slyly, ‘he was in demand.’
February 7, 2015
As a history student I was once told by the lecturer “I always say everyone loves history, except when it’s about the past”. In a similar fashion it was recently put to me that if you take one of those great tomes that claims to be about ‘the history of the world’ and open it exactly halfway through you are probably already in the seventeenth century, at least. Even more so than other fields of history, this present-centrism is particularly the case of the history of Medicine. This book, whose midway point is actually in the nineteenth century, is no exception. The general narrative goes from the great ignorance of medicine under Galenic/Confucian/Ayurvedic speculations where medical practices included bloodletting and mercury pills (this continued into 1920s!) and doctors did more harm than good, until science was finally was applied and medicine finally entered the modern age where it could make a real difference to people’s lives. No doubt there is great truth in that, but it reads the past too much in terms of the present, for one thing, and does not do what historians should do: Explain the past.
It is to the author’s credit that he both tries to complicate this narrative and yet add some real flesh to it. The first third or so of the book deals with pre-modern medicine and includes sections on Chinese and Indian medicine, although the concentration of this part of the book is based on the development of Western Medicine (thankfully it also includes the role Arab scientists played in this). This is also a book that mostly views the history of medicine as through a series of key individuals with long chunks given over to Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen, Avicenna, Rhazes, Paracelsus, Vesalius, Descartes and Harvey among others, explaining their role and importance. But this does not just include major figures, every discovery of note gets mentioned, developments tracked with great detail, countless minor (and not so minor) figures get their paragraph or so noting their contribution. It is extremely thorough and at over 700 pages it should be. However it continues like this throughout the book and by the time it gets to the modern sections it can feel like a long list of forgotten names and notable achievements without much recourse to explanation, narrative or analysis. Great for a textbook, but at times lacking for a history book.
But as I said a virtue of this book is its very thoroughness. Once it has done its tour of Ancient and Medieval global medicine for the first two hundred pages, it moves onto the renaissance and the development of science and modern medicine, from there it branches out into chapters on Medical Care, Public health, Third World and Colonial Medicine, Psychiatry (which is mentioned a fair bit throughout the book), Pasteur and Germ Theory, Research, Surgery, Medical Specialization, the Role of the State in Modern Medicine and Medicine and Society. That last chapter is especially interesting as it combines discussion of twentieth century medical history with its cultural effects, discussing the impact medicine and doctors (not always the same thing) have had on our various cultural conversations. Porter’s general tone might be described as justifiably cynical with a recognition of the limitations of contemporary medicine but also a recognition that real, very real progress has been made and this has had down to the intellectual and scientific shifts he has described. He is also aware that changes in medicine are not exclusive to medicine but have sociological consequences and consequences for how we view ourselves and humanity general. This book is at its best when it attempts intellectual history and tries to understand the frames and metaphor at which figures tried to tackle the problems of disease and death. Unfortunately, there is not enough of this or perhaps this would take a whole different book, he focus instead on the strings of events, the ‘how’ and ‘what’ rather than the ‘why’. Also Porter has a tendency to use a bit too much sociological jargon without really defining it (like ‘the medical gaze’).
Given this he does not really try to answer what I think are some of the big questions of medical history such as How did Galenism survive so long? Why are ancient medical systems obsessed with balances and equilibrium? Is Medical care really a palative to disease or was it basics such as better diet, economic expansion and clear water and air which drove the rise of life expectancy in the twentieth century? That is just listing a few. He does, however, spend time with topics which many other medical historians would not touch, such as the role of Alternative medicine and its history in the 19th and 20th centuries but his explanations of the ‘why’ are a bit generic. Perhaps I’m expressing disappointment at this not being book I would like to see. This primarily functions well as an introductory text rather than a deep piece of analysis.
However, despite my criticisms I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic, especially if they are only a novice. It’s very thorough, it covers a lot of ground across several medical specialities and countries even (although it is rather Anglosphere-centric), and its judgements when it makes them are reasonable and backed up well with argument. Porter has a real feel for his subject and why it is important, even if sometimes it can feel like just ‘one damn thing after another’. As a reference book, I will certainly be looking at it again, it is a mine of information. For what it lacks, there is, no doubt, other material left to explore.
It is to the author’s credit that he both tries to complicate this narrative and yet add some real flesh to it. The first third or so of the book deals with pre-modern medicine and includes sections on Chinese and Indian medicine, although the concentration of this part of the book is based on the development of Western Medicine (thankfully it also includes the role Arab scientists played in this). This is also a book that mostly views the history of medicine as through a series of key individuals with long chunks given over to Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen, Avicenna, Rhazes, Paracelsus, Vesalius, Descartes and Harvey among others, explaining their role and importance. But this does not just include major figures, every discovery of note gets mentioned, developments tracked with great detail, countless minor (and not so minor) figures get their paragraph or so noting their contribution. It is extremely thorough and at over 700 pages it should be. However it continues like this throughout the book and by the time it gets to the modern sections it can feel like a long list of forgotten names and notable achievements without much recourse to explanation, narrative or analysis. Great for a textbook, but at times lacking for a history book.
But as I said a virtue of this book is its very thoroughness. Once it has done its tour of Ancient and Medieval global medicine for the first two hundred pages, it moves onto the renaissance and the development of science and modern medicine, from there it branches out into chapters on Medical Care, Public health, Third World and Colonial Medicine, Psychiatry (which is mentioned a fair bit throughout the book), Pasteur and Germ Theory, Research, Surgery, Medical Specialization, the Role of the State in Modern Medicine and Medicine and Society. That last chapter is especially interesting as it combines discussion of twentieth century medical history with its cultural effects, discussing the impact medicine and doctors (not always the same thing) have had on our various cultural conversations. Porter’s general tone might be described as justifiably cynical with a recognition of the limitations of contemporary medicine but also a recognition that real, very real progress has been made and this has had down to the intellectual and scientific shifts he has described. He is also aware that changes in medicine are not exclusive to medicine but have sociological consequences and consequences for how we view ourselves and humanity general. This book is at its best when it attempts intellectual history and tries to understand the frames and metaphor at which figures tried to tackle the problems of disease and death. Unfortunately, there is not enough of this or perhaps this would take a whole different book, he focus instead on the strings of events, the ‘how’ and ‘what’ rather than the ‘why’. Also Porter has a tendency to use a bit too much sociological jargon without really defining it (like ‘the medical gaze’).
Given this he does not really try to answer what I think are some of the big questions of medical history such as How did Galenism survive so long? Why are ancient medical systems obsessed with balances and equilibrium? Is Medical care really a palative to disease or was it basics such as better diet, economic expansion and clear water and air which drove the rise of life expectancy in the twentieth century? That is just listing a few. He does, however, spend time with topics which many other medical historians would not touch, such as the role of Alternative medicine and its history in the 19th and 20th centuries but his explanations of the ‘why’ are a bit generic. Perhaps I’m expressing disappointment at this not being book I would like to see. This primarily functions well as an introductory text rather than a deep piece of analysis.
However, despite my criticisms I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic, especially if they are only a novice. It’s very thorough, it covers a lot of ground across several medical specialities and countries even (although it is rather Anglosphere-centric), and its judgements when it makes them are reasonable and backed up well with argument. Porter has a real feel for his subject and why it is important, even if sometimes it can feel like just ‘one damn thing after another’. As a reference book, I will certainly be looking at it again, it is a mine of information. For what it lacks, there is, no doubt, other material left to explore.
April 9, 2017
3.5 stars.
So this was actually my textbook for a subject called Pox, Plagues and Pestilence in my third year of undergrad. And that subject was pretty stinking amazing, so I've hung onto this for the past 14 years with intentions of rereading it someday.
So I finally did.
I think a better subtitle for this would be "a medical history of Europe (but mostly the UK) and the US from 1750 to the late 90s". Because while there are one or two chapters at the beginning that deal with medicine in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Asia, the vast majority of the book focuses on the Western world and Western medicine. And really, probably half the book focuses on the 19th century. It's understandable, given that that's when huge medical advances took place. But I still feel like the subtitle is a liiiiiittle misleading.
Anyway.
It's hella long. But it's often fascinating. Definitely worth a look if you're interested in medical history.
So this was actually my textbook for a subject called Pox, Plagues and Pestilence in my third year of undergrad. And that subject was pretty stinking amazing, so I've hung onto this for the past 14 years with intentions of rereading it someday.
So I finally did.
I think a better subtitle for this would be "a medical history of Europe (but mostly the UK) and the US from 1750 to the late 90s". Because while there are one or two chapters at the beginning that deal with medicine in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Asia, the vast majority of the book focuses on the Western world and Western medicine. And really, probably half the book focuses on the 19th century. It's understandable, given that that's when huge medical advances took place. But I still feel like the subtitle is a liiiiiittle misleading.
Anyway.
It's hella long. But it's often fascinating. Definitely worth a look if you're interested in medical history.
May 21, 2020
Ο πολύς Roy Porter υπήρξε στη σύντομη ζωή του η ψυχή και κινητήρια δύναμη της Ιστορίας της Ιατρικής στην αγγλόφωνη ιστοριογραφία. Πολυγραφότατος και εργασιομανής (λέγεται ότι δεν κοιμόταν πάνω από 4 ώρες την ημέρα!) έχει καταπιαστεί με τα πιο δύσκολα (και αχαρτογράφητα) πεδία της ασθένειας και της θεραπείας της τόσο ως εμπειρία όσο και ως ιατρική πρακτική.
Στον παρόντα τόμο όλο αυτό το τεράστιο ερευνητικό έργο μοιάζει να συμπυκνώνεται σε ένα εγχειρίδιο σχεδόν εγκυκλοπαιδικού χαρακτήρα. Χρονικά καλύπτει όλο το φάσμα της ανθρώπινης ιστορίας αν και όπως ομολογεί ο ίδιος ο συγγραφέας έμφαση δίνεται στην Δύση από την αρχαία Ελλάδα και Ρώμη ως τις ημέρες μας.
Δυστυχώς η εντυπωσιακή παράθεση κάθε λογής ιστορικού υλικού γίνεται γρήγορα κουραστική και ανούσια αφού από το όλο αφήγημα απουσιάζει ένα συνεκτικό γενικό επιχείρημα ή έστω μια σειρά από κεντρικά ερωτήματα που θα οδηγήσουν τον αναγνώστη να δει κριτικά την εξέλιξη της ιατρικής στην κοινωνία μας.
Άμεσα συνδεδεμένο και μάλλον αιτία των παραπάνω είναι και η συνειδητή απουσία οποιασδήποτε κριτικής σύζευξης με επιστημολογικές ή κοινωνικές θεωριες της ιατρικής. Χαρακτηριστικά, γίνεται μόνο μια αναφορά στον Μισέλ Φουκώ σε ένα έργο 800+ σελίδων. Ο T. S. Kuhn και η έννοια των επιστημονικών παραδειγμάτων απουσιάζουν πλήρως.
Ο Porter ήταν απολύτως εξοικειωμένος με αυτές τις ιστοριογραφικές οπτικές και ως ένα βαθμό υπήρξε και ο ίδιος μια από τις αιτίες που η αγγλόφωνη ιστοριογραφία παρέμεινε καχύποπτη απέναντι στον φουκωικό μεταμοντερνισμό. Ωστόσο σε ένα έργο που φιλοδοξεί να πει τα πάντα για την ιατρική η απουσία διαλόγου με κριτικά μοντέλα (έστω και για να διαφωνίσειμαζί τους) οδηγεί σε ένα κλασικό αφήγημα παράθεσης ιστορικών επιτυχιών και - πιο συχνά - ατυχημάτων.
Η πρόζα πάντως αν και πληθωρική παραμένει γοητευτική ενώ τα κεφάλαια που αφορούν την ιατρική ως εργαλείο της αποικιοκρατίας ή αυτά της σχέσης ασθενούς - ιατρού είναι εξαιρετικά.
Ειδικά ως αναγνωστικό soundtrack σε εποχές πανδημίας συνίσταται!
Στον παρόντα τόμο όλο αυτό το τεράστιο ερευνητικό έργο μοιάζει να συμπυκνώνεται σε ένα εγχειρίδιο σχεδόν εγκυκλοπαιδικού χαρακτήρα. Χρονικά καλύπτει όλο το φάσμα της ανθρώπινης ιστορίας αν και όπως ομολογεί ο ίδιος ο συγγραφέας έμφαση δίνεται στην Δύση από την αρχαία Ελλάδα και Ρώμη ως τις ημέρες μας.
Δυστυχώς η εντυπωσιακή παράθεση κάθε λογής ιστορικού υλικού γίνεται γρήγορα κουραστική και ανούσια αφού από το όλο αφήγημα απουσιάζει ένα συνεκτικό γενικό επιχείρημα ή έστω μια σειρά από κεντρικά ερωτήματα που θα οδηγήσουν τον αναγνώστη να δει κριτικά την εξέλιξη της ιατρικής στην κοινωνία μας.
Άμεσα συνδεδεμένο και μάλλον αιτία των παραπάνω είναι και η συνειδητή απουσία οποιασδήποτε κριτικής σύζευξης με επιστημολογικές ή κοινωνικές θεωριες της ιατρικής. Χαρακτηριστικά, γίνεται μόνο μια αναφορά στον Μισέλ Φουκώ σε ένα έργο 800+ σελίδων. Ο T. S. Kuhn και η έννοια των επιστημονικών παραδειγμάτων απουσιάζουν πλήρως.
Ο Porter ήταν απολύτως εξοικειωμένος με αυτές τις ιστοριογραφικές οπτικές και ως ένα βαθμό υπήρξε και ο ίδιος μια από τις αιτίες που η αγγλόφωνη ιστοριογραφία παρέμεινε καχύποπτη απέναντι στον φουκωικό μεταμοντερνισμό. Ωστόσο σε ένα έργο που φιλοδοξεί να πει τα πάντα για την ιατρική η απουσία διαλόγου με κριτικά μοντέλα (έστω και για να διαφωνίσειμαζί τους) οδηγεί σε ένα κλασικό αφήγημα παράθεσης ιστορικών επιτυχιών και - πιο συχνά - ατυχημάτων.
Η πρόζα πάντως αν και πληθωρική παραμένει γοητευτική ενώ τα κεφάλαια που αφορούν την ιατρική ως εργαλείο της αποικιοκρατίας ή αυτά της σχέσης ασθενούς - ιατρού είναι εξαιρετικά.
Ειδικά ως αναγνωστικό soundtrack σε εποχές πανδημίας συνίσταται!
August 22, 2017
Prehistory to just before the Renaissance (ish)- A bit of a rattle all things considered. Could have done with a bit more analysis and a bit less dusty listing of eminent persons. But generally a good, broad overview, in a clear style, with sympathies exactly where they should be. The chapters on Indian and Chinese medicine were a particular highlight.
Renaissance - The Enlightenment. Porter really shifts the pace down here, taking more time to put changes in medicine into a proper social context. It's a pretty challenging read at times, and still occasionally degenerates into a dizzying list of names, but very worthwhile. The thematic organisation of chapters will be v. useful as a reference.
The 19th Century - Penicillin. We're on to the really good stuff here, as with the previous sections it can at times be a bit dizzying, and I've needed to take my time with it, but even more so than the 'enlightenment' section the focus is now firmly on historical context rather than endless lists of eminent physicians. Really good stuff.
Practice Areas - Porter breaks off from the strict chronological order he's followed previously to discuss various areas in more depth. It's fair to say his thread to gets a little bit lost at times, and depending on your interests some bits will be more useful than others. I found the chapters on 'tropical medicine' and nutrition especially interesting.
Medicine, State and Society and Medicine and the People- a bit of a mixed bag, on one hand, it's clearly where Porter's heart lay and contains his most passionate and interesting arguments. On the other hand, it's also where the book shows its age the most, and also where it starts to collapse under its own weight, bits and pieces from the thematic sections are repeated and the structure gets a bit lost.
Overall Thoughts - A comprehensive single volume history of medicine was probably... brave... in the Yes, Minister sense, several times here I felt that Porter's structure and argument was getting lost amidst the wealth of detail. Particularly towards the end, as we moved away from strict linear progression through history towards treating development thematically, the tendency to repeat points covered earlier almost seemed to recognise that most people will find this more useful and enjoyable as a reference rather than a read.
Taken in those terms though this has to count as a great success. The breadth and depth of scholarship on display is staggering, as is the humane vision of the role of medicine. The last couple of months with The Greatest Benefit to Mankind have often felt like a slog, but it's been an endlessly rewarding slog (if that's possible) and I hope I shall have many opportunities in the future to draw on the wealth of knowledge it contains.
Renaissance - The Enlightenment. Porter really shifts the pace down here, taking more time to put changes in medicine into a proper social context. It's a pretty challenging read at times, and still occasionally degenerates into a dizzying list of names, but very worthwhile. The thematic organisation of chapters will be v. useful as a reference.
The 19th Century - Penicillin. We're on to the really good stuff here, as with the previous sections it can at times be a bit dizzying, and I've needed to take my time with it, but even more so than the 'enlightenment' section the focus is now firmly on historical context rather than endless lists of eminent physicians. Really good stuff.
Practice Areas - Porter breaks off from the strict chronological order he's followed previously to discuss various areas in more depth. It's fair to say his thread to gets a little bit lost at times, and depending on your interests some bits will be more useful than others. I found the chapters on 'tropical medicine' and nutrition especially interesting.
Medicine, State and Society and Medicine and the People- a bit of a mixed bag, on one hand, it's clearly where Porter's heart lay and contains his most passionate and interesting arguments. On the other hand, it's also where the book shows its age the most, and also where it starts to collapse under its own weight, bits and pieces from the thematic sections are repeated and the structure gets a bit lost.
Overall Thoughts - A comprehensive single volume history of medicine was probably... brave... in the Yes, Minister sense, several times here I felt that Porter's structure and argument was getting lost amidst the wealth of detail. Particularly towards the end, as we moved away from strict linear progression through history towards treating development thematically, the tendency to repeat points covered earlier almost seemed to recognise that most people will find this more useful and enjoyable as a reference rather than a read.
Taken in those terms though this has to count as a great success. The breadth and depth of scholarship on display is staggering, as is the humane vision of the role of medicine. The last couple of months with The Greatest Benefit to Mankind have often felt like a slog, but it's been an endlessly rewarding slog (if that's possible) and I hope I shall have many opportunities in the future to draw on the wealth of knowledge it contains.
February 23, 2026
Tuhle bichli jsem si pořídil, protože na ní často odkazoval Bill Bryson ve své knize Tělo: příručka pro uživatele , ale nejedná se o tak zábavnou četbu. Roy Porter byl během svého krátkého života duší a hnací silou dějin medicíny v anglicky psané historiografii. Byl velmi plodným autorem a workoholikem a zabýval se nejobtížnějšími (a neprozkoumanými) oblastmi nemoci a její léčby, a to jak z hlediska zkušeností, tak z hlediska lékařské praxe. Tímto svazkem v podstatě vytvořil encyklopedii, která časově pokrývá celé spektrum lidské historie, i když je důraz je kladen na Západ od starověkého Řecka a Říma až po současnost. Bohužel, působivé srovnání nejrůznějšího historického materiálu se rychle stává únavným a bezvýznamným, protože z celého vyprávění chybí souvislý obecný argument nebo alespoň řada ústředních otázek, které by vedly čtenáře k kritickému pohledu na vývoj medicíny v naší společnosti. V této knize budete narážet na neustálé zmiňování jmen a historických publikací, které pro vás budou z větší části nepodstatné. Takže pokud vás zajímá medicína a historie, rozhodně spíš doporučuji již zmiňovanou knihu Billa Brysona.
July 12, 2009
The author is a good writer and is extremely knowledgeable, but he doesn't tell a very interesting story. It felt like an endless parade of forgotten individuals and the forgotten books they wrote. I understand that medicine progressed in that way, i.e. lots of people building on each others' small discoveries, but it makes for a dull story. I'd have preferred to get to know a handful of truly major figures in medical history rather than have the author briefly touch on dozens and dozens of people.
February 18, 2021
I liked it, but I feel as if the author went too broad in his approach. As a "brief medical history of the world" it was scattered and thin. It held many interesting facts, but he didn't share anything revolutionary before the modern era, and the eastern additives felt like a footnote in comparison to his treatises on western medical practice. Perhaps he just tried to do too much in too few pages.
November 26, 2023
Whew, what a text. This book took me over a year to finish, mostly because of the density and history referenced in the text. I originally picked this up thinking I would get a history of medical developments in order to better understand some of the present day developments and science. Reading through this is much more of a person and key player history more than a science history. It does cover major medical developments and breakthroughs, but in a broad sense. The style itself can get a bit repetitive and, at times, dry. There were several portions where the author perhaps got a bit too lost in the details, sometimes dedicating a single paragraph or handful of sentences to some obscure figure in history that had a hand in the development of the aforementioned breakthroughs, only to return to the main point. For some, this may be a net positive, but I found it to be a bit much and would have preferred the real estate in the book to be used otherwise.
However, for a comprehensive text and such a massive endeavor to cover a broad landscape, the author did extraordinarily well. I would recommend this book to any individual who is looking to get a broad idea and person history of the development of medicine. Though, be warned, it is not for the faint of heart, and you may find yourself, like I did, spending more time outside the text rather than reading the text trying to get a better understanding of the key contributors and chasing the many references the text has to offer.
However, for a comprehensive text and such a massive endeavor to cover a broad landscape, the author did extraordinarily well. I would recommend this book to any individual who is looking to get a broad idea and person history of the development of medicine. Though, be warned, it is not for the faint of heart, and you may find yourself, like I did, spending more time outside the text rather than reading the text trying to get a better understanding of the key contributors and chasing the many references the text has to offer.
September 11, 2025
A broad (very broad) overview of the history of medicine, Porter seeks to examine the development of medical thinking and medical practice, starting from the dawn of man to the present day (or rather the 1990s). Extensive in its historical outlook, some of its earlier chapters cover a vast amount of history in a very short amount of pages, perhaps to the book's detriment. However, once reaching the 19th century (and thus the revolution of medical knowledge, technology, and practice), Porter finds his stride. Examining medical history from the perspective of its practitioners, its technology, and its subjects (i.e. the public), Porter does an excellent job balancing a history of medicine, which traditionally has leaned more hagiographic in nature, between its triumphs, failures, and larger societal impact. Because of the scope, there are obviously some distinct gaps in knowledge (he dedicates two chapters to Islamic and Chinese medicine, but these chapters stand for the entirety of their history and are rarely touched on again in this 800+ page book), however as an overview, this is excellent text to read and reference.
May 31, 2019
This encyclopedic work should be consumed along with other books in the rotation. This is pretty comprehensive, but mostly focuses on the development of Western/scientific medicine. You will get a lot of info about fads along with actual scientific progress. One question I have: why feces were such a prominent ingredient in many drugs before the advent of scientific pharmacology? The author is quite witty a points. When describing the development of Munchausen's syndrome (addiction to surgery) as a diagnosis, he comments, "No label seems to have been devised, however, for surgeons addicted to surgery." The description of various experiments provide some good cocktail party conversation fodder: having healthy patients bitten by infected mosquitos (that one wouldn't have gotten IRB approval); "John Brinkley (1885-1942) made a specialty of implanting goats' testicles, promising his clients sexual rejuvenation and relief of high blood pressure"; the beginnings of understanding of the microbiome show up when doctors transplant (via feeding tubes) the stomach contents of non-anemic patients into the stomachs of anemic patients. If you are interested in the history of medicine, this is a good book to lay the foundation.
Tidbits:
- Why the lack of medical science progress? Perhaps it was the church's focus on the soul, subordinating the body to the spirit (along with Galen worship (if dissection to prove Galen right, it was the anatomist's fault))
- dissection was not prohibited but was restricted to criminal bodies
- 1200s in southern Europe there was no separation between surgeon and physician, while in Paris these positions were differently licensed
- "The wish to bring dead crusaders back from the Holy Land for burial led to the custom of boiling up bodies to leave only the bones, and to the preservation of the heart of the deceased."
- there are passages that show the existence of surgical techniques (e.g. removing cataracts) in 9th century Indian medicine, but there is no evidence of further progress
- Galen did not provide many examples of human dissection and applied the results of animal dissection to humans (parallels to modern pharmaceutical research that gets a lot of hype... there's even a scientist whose twitter account is used just add "in mice" to the end of many news headlines hyping the latest findings in pharmaceutical testing)
- In 1572, Pare addressed the study of obstetrics, show the art of podalic version (turning a baby in the womb, to facilitate feet-first delivery)." What?!
- subtitle of one 16th century book: The Mirror of the Apothecaries and Druggists in Which is Demonstrated How the Apothecaries Commonly Make Mistakes in Several Medicines Contrary to the Intention of the Greeks... on the Basis of the Wicked and Faulty Teachings of the Arabs
- "Renaissance humanism benefitted the doctor more than the patient. The new learning hardly helped physicians to cure diseases. But it gave the medical profession an elevated sense of its proper dignity."
- thanks to the development of printing, writings popularizing health advice made up for the lack of institutional medical provision
- The forceps were developed in the mid-16th century, but their use did not spread because the design was kept a family secret
- the life table was developed in 1693 by the astronomer Edmond Halley
- because the patients medical history was so important, the common practice of postal diagnosis was perfectly reputable in the 18th century
- medical education in late 18th century Britain: Edinburgh University was cheap, had no religious restrictions, lectures in English, no obligation to graduate, and students only paid attended for those courses they desired
- surgery in the early 19th century: post-op infection meant that mortality for amputation was as high as 40 percent. "The surgeon's only answers to the excruciating pain attending all knife-and-saw work were skill and speed. In 1824, Astley Cooper took twenty minutes to amputate a leg through the hip joint; ten years later, James Syme was doing it in ninety seconds."
- medical fad of the 1800s: incising tongues as treatment to stammering
- demonstration of using laughing gas before pulling tooth was botched and the developer of ether began adding ingredients to color it and mask the smell, announcing he had discovered a new gas
- "Lister made a fetish of antisepsis but did not scrub his hands... and continued to operate in street clothes"
- nursing remained dominated by religious orders in the early 20th century. In Germany, out of a total nurse population of 75,000, only 3000 belonged to the professional Nurses' Association.
- By the 1920s, clouding of the cornea was being treated by transplantation, and thermocautery was introduced to repair detached retinas
- different development of medical specialization: in Britain, special disease/body part hospitals developed; in the US, hospitals developed to cater to particular ethnic groups rather than disease groups; in Germany and Austria, specialized departments within hospitals (rather separate institutions) were more likely to emerge
- hospitals for treatment rather than care of the dying were developed in the wake of optimism towards science and laboratory research
- most of the students at the alternative medicine Massachusetts Metaphysical College were mostly women who were excluded from regular medical education
- public health: by 1900, diagnostic labs had been set up in every state and in most major cities in the US, while the public health lab developed more slowly in Europe
- the importance of showing the mosquito as a vector for various diseases cannot be understated
- the mosquito experiments could not be done today. These studies required healthy individuals with no contact with the disease in question be bitten by an infected mosquito (there were volunteers for this!)
- anti-malarial campaigns were quite successful in the US and Europe (not needing constant long-term action, malaria was seemingly driven out after a decade). Malaria proved more resilient in less developed areas, most likely due to the endemic nature of malaria in those regions
- there was private funding for research on tropical diseases, mostly as a way to facilitate "imperial commerce"
- Freud held to the idea (through his last publication) of the importance of the repressed Oedipus complex
- pressure from the Rockefeller charity and professional associations led to a decrease in the supply of doctors. In 1910 4400 doctors graduated; by 1920 it was 3047
- Experiment that showed persistent anemia was due to digestive dysfunction: For 10 days, anemic patients were fed minced rare steak. Their blood showed no sign of improvement. At the same time, ordinary men were fed the same amount of steak. Their gastric contents were recovered through a stomach tube. These contents were liquified and fed through a stomach tube to the anemic patients. The patients' blood showed clear signs of regeneration after a few days.
- Experiment in endocrinology: It had long been known that castrating a rooster led its comb to atrophy; if the testes were then transplanted to another part of the body, this did not happen
- Sharing with serum and vaccine therapies the promise of scientific miracles, testicular implants enjoyed a vogue; monkey-gland implants were popularized in the 1920s; in the US, John Brinkley (1885-1942) made a specialty of implanting goats' testicles, promising his clients sexual rejuvenation and relief of high blood pressure.
- Injecting a woman's blood into a lab rat, if the woman was pregnant, the rat would go into heat (1929).
- electrocardiograph was invented in 1903
- various surgeries became vogue in 1920s and 1930s, tonsillectomies (vastly oversubscribed), hysterectomies, removal of sympathetic nerves, etc. Munchausen's syndrome (addiction to surgery) became a diagnosis. "No label seems to have been devised, however, for surgeons addicted to surgery."
- 1934, electron microscope had the same magnification of the best light microscopes. By 1946, it could magnify objects 200,000 times
- 1914, researchers at Johns Hopkins developed artificial kidney for dogs for dialysis. The 1940s saw the first workable dialysis machine for humans
- Cost projections of British NHS were way off: calculated annual cost was £170 million, in 1951 the actual cost was £400 million and in 1960 it was £726 million
- John Abernathy (1764-1831) was apparently in the habit of barking at fat ladies "Madam, buy a skipping rope"
- discussing the utility of medications Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-94) "no families take so little medicine as those of doctors"
- difference in UK and US: in 1930s, 1 in 7 UK doctors were general practitioners (fewer than half of US were GPs), in 1980s, 65 percent of UK doctors were GPs, only 1 in 8 US doctors
- Lamaze (of Lamaze breathing) was a bit of a quack
- adhering to home births and rejecting orthodox medicine, the Faith Assembly religious sect in Indiana had a perinatal mortality (i.e. stillbirth or early neonatal death) was 92 times higher than Indiana as a whole (as of the books publishing)
Tidbits:
- Why the lack of medical science progress? Perhaps it was the church's focus on the soul, subordinating the body to the spirit (along with Galen worship (if dissection to prove Galen right, it was the anatomist's fault))
- dissection was not prohibited but was restricted to criminal bodies
- 1200s in southern Europe there was no separation between surgeon and physician, while in Paris these positions were differently licensed
- "The wish to bring dead crusaders back from the Holy Land for burial led to the custom of boiling up bodies to leave only the bones, and to the preservation of the heart of the deceased."
- there are passages that show the existence of surgical techniques (e.g. removing cataracts) in 9th century Indian medicine, but there is no evidence of further progress
- Galen did not provide many examples of human dissection and applied the results of animal dissection to humans (parallels to modern pharmaceutical research that gets a lot of hype... there's even a scientist whose twitter account is used just add "in mice" to the end of many news headlines hyping the latest findings in pharmaceutical testing)
- In 1572, Pare addressed the study of obstetrics, show the art of podalic version (turning a baby in the womb, to facilitate feet-first delivery)." What?!
- subtitle of one 16th century book: The Mirror of the Apothecaries and Druggists in Which is Demonstrated How the Apothecaries Commonly Make Mistakes in Several Medicines Contrary to the Intention of the Greeks... on the Basis of the Wicked and Faulty Teachings of the Arabs
- "Renaissance humanism benefitted the doctor more than the patient. The new learning hardly helped physicians to cure diseases. But it gave the medical profession an elevated sense of its proper dignity."
- thanks to the development of printing, writings popularizing health advice made up for the lack of institutional medical provision
- The forceps were developed in the mid-16th century, but their use did not spread because the design was kept a family secret
- the life table was developed in 1693 by the astronomer Edmond Halley
- because the patients medical history was so important, the common practice of postal diagnosis was perfectly reputable in the 18th century
- medical education in late 18th century Britain: Edinburgh University was cheap, had no religious restrictions, lectures in English, no obligation to graduate, and students only paid attended for those courses they desired
- surgery in the early 19th century: post-op infection meant that mortality for amputation was as high as 40 percent. "The surgeon's only answers to the excruciating pain attending all knife-and-saw work were skill and speed. In 1824, Astley Cooper took twenty minutes to amputate a leg through the hip joint; ten years later, James Syme was doing it in ninety seconds."
- medical fad of the 1800s: incising tongues as treatment to stammering
- demonstration of using laughing gas before pulling tooth was botched and the developer of ether began adding ingredients to color it and mask the smell, announcing he had discovered a new gas
- "Lister made a fetish of antisepsis but did not scrub his hands... and continued to operate in street clothes"
- nursing remained dominated by religious orders in the early 20th century. In Germany, out of a total nurse population of 75,000, only 3000 belonged to the professional Nurses' Association.
- By the 1920s, clouding of the cornea was being treated by transplantation, and thermocautery was introduced to repair detached retinas
- different development of medical specialization: in Britain, special disease/body part hospitals developed; in the US, hospitals developed to cater to particular ethnic groups rather than disease groups; in Germany and Austria, specialized departments within hospitals (rather separate institutions) were more likely to emerge
- hospitals for treatment rather than care of the dying were developed in the wake of optimism towards science and laboratory research
- most of the students at the alternative medicine Massachusetts Metaphysical College were mostly women who were excluded from regular medical education
- public health: by 1900, diagnostic labs had been set up in every state and in most major cities in the US, while the public health lab developed more slowly in Europe
- the importance of showing the mosquito as a vector for various diseases cannot be understated
- the mosquito experiments could not be done today. These studies required healthy individuals with no contact with the disease in question be bitten by an infected mosquito (there were volunteers for this!)
- anti-malarial campaigns were quite successful in the US and Europe (not needing constant long-term action, malaria was seemingly driven out after a decade). Malaria proved more resilient in less developed areas, most likely due to the endemic nature of malaria in those regions
- there was private funding for research on tropical diseases, mostly as a way to facilitate "imperial commerce"
- Freud held to the idea (through his last publication) of the importance of the repressed Oedipus complex
- pressure from the Rockefeller charity and professional associations led to a decrease in the supply of doctors. In 1910 4400 doctors graduated; by 1920 it was 3047
- Experiment that showed persistent anemia was due to digestive dysfunction: For 10 days, anemic patients were fed minced rare steak. Their blood showed no sign of improvement. At the same time, ordinary men were fed the same amount of steak. Their gastric contents were recovered through a stomach tube. These contents were liquified and fed through a stomach tube to the anemic patients. The patients' blood showed clear signs of regeneration after a few days.
- Experiment in endocrinology: It had long been known that castrating a rooster led its comb to atrophy; if the testes were then transplanted to another part of the body, this did not happen
- Sharing with serum and vaccine therapies the promise of scientific miracles, testicular implants enjoyed a vogue; monkey-gland implants were popularized in the 1920s; in the US, John Brinkley (1885-1942) made a specialty of implanting goats' testicles, promising his clients sexual rejuvenation and relief of high blood pressure.
- Injecting a woman's blood into a lab rat, if the woman was pregnant, the rat would go into heat (1929).
- electrocardiograph was invented in 1903
- various surgeries became vogue in 1920s and 1930s, tonsillectomies (vastly oversubscribed), hysterectomies, removal of sympathetic nerves, etc. Munchausen's syndrome (addiction to surgery) became a diagnosis. "No label seems to have been devised, however, for surgeons addicted to surgery."
- 1934, electron microscope had the same magnification of the best light microscopes. By 1946, it could magnify objects 200,000 times
- 1914, researchers at Johns Hopkins developed artificial kidney for dogs for dialysis. The 1940s saw the first workable dialysis machine for humans
- Cost projections of British NHS were way off: calculated annual cost was £170 million, in 1951 the actual cost was £400 million and in 1960 it was £726 million
- John Abernathy (1764-1831) was apparently in the habit of barking at fat ladies "Madam, buy a skipping rope"
- discussing the utility of medications Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-94) "no families take so little medicine as those of doctors"
- difference in UK and US: in 1930s, 1 in 7 UK doctors were general practitioners (fewer than half of US were GPs), in 1980s, 65 percent of UK doctors were GPs, only 1 in 8 US doctors
- Lamaze (of Lamaze breathing) was a bit of a quack
- adhering to home births and rejecting orthodox medicine, the Faith Assembly religious sect in Indiana had a perinatal mortality (i.e. stillbirth or early neonatal death) was 92 times higher than Indiana as a whole (as of the books publishing)
Read
March 1, 2015Is this book for you? I was looking for a history of disease; this wasn't it. It is exactly what the title says: a medical history of humanity, and its approach is perfect primarily for historians and sociologists. Take the time spent on the cautionary tales of surgery, those early butcheries, forced hysterectomies based on supposed nymphomania and so on. When they happened, it was punctually and mainly in the the hands of the quacks and the crazies, and in less regulated regions like Northamerica. As such they have human interest, but medically none; it's not science even in its imperfect, embryologic form, it's stupidity. I also cared less about the smaller anecdotes of science (Koch's marriage) and the progression of everyone's school, but I would have liked tracing the ancient plagues in place and history, and a description of the most important sickness in social strata and countries. I am interested in the epidemiological data of the XVII century, but it's harder to trace than the development of the microscope.
Still, this is extraordinarily readable for a subject that could be approached with reference texts. It is also precise and erudite. I have yet to find another similar book which suits me better; until then, I am left with this two-fold surprise: one, that a non-doctor who has spent so much time thinking about medicine and its old inadequacies is so ambivalent about the modern scientific approach, second, that I read the whole book.
Still, this is extraordinarily readable for a subject that could be approached with reference texts. It is also precise and erudite. I have yet to find another similar book which suits me better; until then, I am left with this two-fold surprise: one, that a non-doctor who has spent so much time thinking about medicine and its old inadequacies is so ambivalent about the modern scientific approach, second, that I read the whole book.
October 23, 2016
'The Greatest Benefit to Mankind' by Roy Porter is a well written and concisely informative narrative of the development of medical science and its relationship with civilization and its progress.
The title expresses an opinion that I share. I believe that medicine has bestowed on humankind the greatest benefits of the advancement and institutionalization of a field of knowledge.
The beginnings of medicine are as dark and harsh as any of the other realities and practices of those days. Today, medicine is most often practiced in a sterile environment with state of the art equipment that is operated by people you can trust to know exactly what they are doing. Who fears the hospital and its professional staff, even knowing the heavy and dire situations that go on there?
But in the days of medicine's infancy and for the longest time, before the Enlightenment and the professionalization of the science(fairly recent events), the practice of medicine could be very dangerous and surgery was horrific.
Medicine and the art of surgery was there on probably every bloody battlefield in history, too. Before morphine and anesthesia, war-cries were then soon exchanged for ones of sheer bone-sawing pain.
Back then:
-Childbirth was potentially fatal to both the mother and or her offspring.
-There was little knowledge of bacteria and disease or how exactly they spread, or who could be most susceptible to what and why.
-mental health could be a nightmare.
-Common procedures for any diagnosis from physical ailments to pshycological diagnosis could include dangerously bleeding the patient out.
-Hospitals were the filthiest most disease ridden places.
-Average life expectancy was decades shorter than it is today.
And today:
+Nearly everybody is born in a hospital.
+Most people are required to be vaccinated.
+Psychology is more understood.
+There is a standard procedure for everything.
+Hospitals are sterile and safe.
+Life expectancy is decades greater and rising.
-In fact these days the only thing keeping most people from near perfect health is their own diet and lifestyle.
Anyways, Roy Porter's book is probably the best on shelves for anyone interested in the history of Medicine, an enlightening good read.
The title expresses an opinion that I share. I believe that medicine has bestowed on humankind the greatest benefits of the advancement and institutionalization of a field of knowledge.
The beginnings of medicine are as dark and harsh as any of the other realities and practices of those days. Today, medicine is most often practiced in a sterile environment with state of the art equipment that is operated by people you can trust to know exactly what they are doing. Who fears the hospital and its professional staff, even knowing the heavy and dire situations that go on there?
But in the days of medicine's infancy and for the longest time, before the Enlightenment and the professionalization of the science(fairly recent events), the practice of medicine could be very dangerous and surgery was horrific.
Medicine and the art of surgery was there on probably every bloody battlefield in history, too. Before morphine and anesthesia, war-cries were then soon exchanged for ones of sheer bone-sawing pain.
Back then:
-Childbirth was potentially fatal to both the mother and or her offspring.
-There was little knowledge of bacteria and disease or how exactly they spread, or who could be most susceptible to what and why.
-mental health could be a nightmare.
-Common procedures for any diagnosis from physical ailments to pshycological diagnosis could include dangerously bleeding the patient out.
-Hospitals were the filthiest most disease ridden places.
-Average life expectancy was decades shorter than it is today.
And today:
+Nearly everybody is born in a hospital.
+Most people are required to be vaccinated.
+Psychology is more understood.
+There is a standard procedure for everything.
+Hospitals are sterile and safe.
+Life expectancy is decades greater and rising.
-In fact these days the only thing keeping most people from near perfect health is their own diet and lifestyle.
Anyways, Roy Porter's book is probably the best on shelves for anyone interested in the history of Medicine, an enlightening good read.
September 20, 2026
As a doctor, an editor of the BMJ, and, perhaps most importantly, as a critic of medicine, I knew something about the history of medicine, but not, I felt, enough. I decided I needed to read a comprehensive history, and I turned to Roy Porter’s The Greatest Benefit to Mankind - A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present, which was published in 1999.
Porter was described as “the man who knew more about the 18th century than anybody alive,” and he was widely regarded as a brilliant historian. I knew him slightly (mainly from the bike shed in BMA House, where we both worked) and heard him give a brilliant lecture on historical views of the dangers of reading. https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/... He had five wives and died suddenly at 55, phenomena that might be linked.
The history is comprehensive, mentioning hundreds if not thousands of names and making clear that it has taken a great many people to create medicine. In this, medicine is, I think, different from philosophy, where a relatively small number of geniuses have dominated. Porter not only tells the story of event after event but is analytical and critical. His title, a quote from Dr Johnson, is used ironically.
At 848 pages the book is long, and I’ve discovered that many people own a copy but have dipped into it rather than read it right through. I hope that I might do medical history, the world at large, students of medicine (surely all of us), and Porter a service by posting extracts of his book on my website. The extracts will, I hope, persuade you to read the book. Here’s a link to the first: https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/...
Porter was described as “the man who knew more about the 18th century than anybody alive,” and he was widely regarded as a brilliant historian. I knew him slightly (mainly from the bike shed in BMA House, where we both worked) and heard him give a brilliant lecture on historical views of the dangers of reading. https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/... He had five wives and died suddenly at 55, phenomena that might be linked.
The history is comprehensive, mentioning hundreds if not thousands of names and making clear that it has taken a great many people to create medicine. In this, medicine is, I think, different from philosophy, where a relatively small number of geniuses have dominated. Porter not only tells the story of event after event but is analytical and critical. His title, a quote from Dr Johnson, is used ironically.
At 848 pages the book is long, and I’ve discovered that many people own a copy but have dipped into it rather than read it right through. I hope that I might do medical history, the world at large, students of medicine (surely all of us), and Porter a service by posting extracts of his book on my website. The extracts will, I hope, persuade you to read the book. Here’s a link to the first: https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/...
December 29, 2023
OK, this book is a VERY comprehensive history of medicine, all kinds of medicine all over the world, its origins, its theories, with discussions of medicine through all time and through all of the world, with all of the changes, technologies, medicaments, people involved, ending in an analysis of contemporary medicine. If you want confidence in today's medical establishment--don't read this book. It is hard to make the history of medicine difficult to read, but this book manages, not because it's badly written, but because it is SOOO comprehensive, with little prioritizing of information, and so most just discusses everything briefly, with few color adding details of the stories, quotes, quirks, and personalities that make this history fascinating. The author covers it all, but just that--covers it, not allowing the reader the time to judge and enjoy the details he is presenting. The ending chapters that show the industrialization, commercialization, of modern medicine, slow down a bit, but then the reader gets NO details of the corporations, and people, that are taking a negative control of modern medicine.
May 3, 2017
If you want an interesting, and fairly comprehensive, history of medicine, this is a great place to start. Porter's direct, to-the-point, style works as a counterpoint to his nuanced understanding of how western (science based) medicine came to be, and how it's used around the world as modern medicine. But his perspective expands boundaries, showing not only the history of medicine in various parts of the world but how traditional medicines often complement modern medicines.
As the husband of a future physician, I'm doing my part to understand my wife's vocation. Reading about the history of medicine is fascinating, and Porter's book brings the many characters, concepts, philosophies, triumphs, and tragedies to life.
As the husband of a future physician, I'm doing my part to understand my wife's vocation. Reading about the history of medicine is fascinating, and Porter's book brings the many characters, concepts, philosophies, triumphs, and tragedies to life.
April 30, 2023
This was a slog of a book. I would read one of its loooong chapters between finishing other books. Having said that it’s extremely informational, encyclopedic, to the point, at times, of repetition. I think it’s normally used as a text for medical history classes (that’s how I heard about it), and it’s certainly useful as a reference, or to dip into if you were interested in a particular topic. I found the chapters/sections on non-Western medicines, nursing, and medicine & the state, particularly interesting.
July 19, 2017
This was a really good history of medicine from the earliest times until the end of the nineteenth century, and then ran through the twentieth century, and in particular through the era of effective pharmaceuticals, in a terrible rush, finishing with a discussion of HIV that really showed its age.
February 19, 2023
This book was a grind. It had amazing detail and I learned a lot. It was successful It portraying the entire history of medicine. The analysis is in depth and thoughtful. I wasn't entertaining outside of its topic so I can't give it a 5 star rating. I read it off and on for about 7 years.
June 8, 2024
I give a lot of credit to the author for being a great historic and researcher. That is where the bulk of my rating is from.
But it feels like a list of people and they're accomplishments.
There's no story, no fluidity, no extrapolation.
But it feels like a list of people and they're accomplishments.
There's no story, no fluidity, no extrapolation.
August 18, 2025
By far the most impressively thorough historical work I've ever read. I will retain very little as someone who knew nothing about medicine going in, but even just the broad strokes I'll take away are well worth the read!
July 20, 2017
-encyclopedic information amount
-best skimmed unless already familiar with what is being discussed
-well written
-already a big out of date, facts and figures from 90s at the latest
-best skimmed unless already familiar with what is being discussed
-well written
-already a big out of date, facts and figures from 90s at the latest
March 29, 2018
I enjoyed this quite a bit. The style is easy to read and very interesting. A good read.
July 28, 2019
Wow, some book, some bits fascinating, some not
September 26, 2021
if anything too short
Read
December 21, 2021this was the textbook for one of my favorite classes in college <3
December 16, 2022
Read selected chapters from this book for my “Origins of Modern Medicine” class.
July 3, 2023
"The history of medicine is not just a story of doctors and patients, but of communities and cultures, of politics and economics, of science and technology, of life and death."
July 13, 2023
4.25 / 5.0
Very engaging with good historical context
Very engaging with good historical context
Want to Read
July 14, 2023R 131 P59 1998
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