Ailments Through the Ages: An Alarming History of Famous & Difficult Patients

by Richard Gordon

This is a unique and entertaining compendium filled with bizarre medical remedies, and amusing anecdotes of famous people throughout history - from kings and queens to well-known figures from literature, theatre and politics.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published September 25, 1998

About the author

Richard Gordon is the pen name used by Gordon Ostlere (born Gordon Stanley Ostlere on September 15, 1921), an English surgeon and anaesthetist. As Richard Gordon, Ostlere has written several novels, screenplays for film and television and accounts of popular history, mostly dealing with the practice of medicine. He is most famous for a long series of comic novels on a medical theme starting with Doctor in the House, and the subsequent film, television and stage adaptations. His The Alarming History of Medicine was published in 1993, and he followed this with The Alarming History of Sex.

Gordon worked as anaesthetist at St. Bartholomew's Hospital (where he was a medical student) and later as a ship's surgeon and as assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. He has published several technical books under his own name including Anaesthetics for Medical Students(1949); later published as Ostlere and Bryce-Smith's Anaesthetics for Medical Students in 1989, Anaesthetics and the Patient (1949) and Trichlorethylene Anaesthesia (1953). In 1952, he left medical practice and took up writing full time. He has an uncredited role as an anesthesiologist in the movie Doctor in the House.

The early Doctor novels, set in the fictitious St Swithin's, a teaching hospital in London, were initially witty and apparently autobiographical; later books included more sexual innuendo and farce. The novels were very successful in Britain in Penguin paperback during the 1960s and 1970s. Richard Gordon also contributed to Punch magazine and has published books on medicine, gardening, fishing and cricket.

The film adaptation of Doctor in the House was released in 1954, two years after the book, while Doctor at Sea came out the following year with Brigitte Bardot. Dirk Bogarde starred as Dr. Simon Sparrow in both. The later spin-off TV series were often written by other well-known British comic performers.

Reviews

[Sadie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I waffled whether to give this three or four stara. On the one hand it's very interesting, and cleanly written. The author clearly kniws what he's talking about. The fhapters aren't in chronological order, rather they're in order of relevence to the topic at hand. A bit jarring if you weren't expecting it, but easy to get used to.

On the other hand, one thing that certainly soured the book were the author's opinions, unasked for, peppered throughout. What is a really fascinating look into the pathology of laorger than life figures of our past is ruined by snide, snarky comments. You can clearly see who he dislikes. He was more pleasant while describing Hitler's afflications than Florence Nightengale. And Bernard Shaw is dead, sir, you don't have to defend yourself to him.