Download or read book Shakespeare s Tremor and Orwell s Cough written by John J. Ross, MD and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The doctor suddenly appeared beside Will, startling him. He was sleek and prosperous, with a dainty goatee. Though he smiled reassuringly, the poet noticed that he kept a safe distance. In a soothing, urbane voice, the physician explained the treatment: stewed prunes to evacuate the bowels; succulent meats to ease digestion; cinnabar and the sweating tub to cleanse the disease from the skin. The doctor warned of minor side effects: uncontrolled drooling, fetid breath, bloody gums, shakes and palsies. Yet desperate diseases called for desperate remedies, of course. Were Shakespeare's shaky handwriting, his obsession with venereal disease, and his premature retirement connected? Did John Milton go blind from his propaganda work for the Puritan dictator Oliver Cromwell, as he believed, or did he have a rare and devastating complication of a very common eye problem? Did Jonathan Swift's preoccupation with sex and filth result from a neurological condition that might also explain his late-life surge in creativity? What Victorian plague wiped out the entire Brontë family? What was the cause of Nathaniel Hawthorne's sudden demise? Were Herman Melville's disabling attacks of eye and back pain the product of "nervous affections," as his family and physicians believed, or did he actually have a malady that was unknown to medical science until well after his death? Was Jack London a suicide, or was his death the product of a series of self-induced medical misadventures? Why did W. B. Yeats's doctors dose him with toxic amounts of arsenic? Did James Joyce need several horrific eye operations because of a strange autoimmune disease acquired from a Dublin streetwalker? Did writing Nineteen Eighty-Four actually kill George Orwell? The Bard meets House, M.D. in this fascinating untold story of the impact of disease on the lives and works of some the finest writers in the English language. In Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough, John Ross cheerfully debunks old biographical myths and suggests fresh diagnoses for these writers' real-life medical mysteries. The author takes us way back, when leeches were used for bleeding and cupping was a common method of cure, to a time before vaccinations, sterilized scalpels, or real drug regimens. With a healthy dose of gross descriptions and a deep love for the literary output of these ten greats, Ross is the doctor these writers should have had in their time of need.
Download or read book Dr Mutter s Marvels written by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mesmerizing biography of the brilliant and eccentric medical innovator who revolutionized American surgery and founded the country’s most famous museum of medical oddities Imagine undergoing an operation without anesthesia, performed by a surgeon who refuses to sterilize his tools—or even wash his hands. This was the world of medicine when Thomas Dent Mütter began his trailblazing career as a plastic surgeon in Philadelphia during the mid-nineteenth century. Although he died at just forty-eight, Mütter was an audacious medical innovator who pioneered the use of ether as anesthesia, the sterilization of surgical tools, and a compassion-based vision for helping the severely deformed, which clashed spectacularly with the sentiments of his time. Brilliant, outspoken, and brazenly handsome, Mütter was flamboyant in every aspect of his life. He wore pink silk suits to perform surgery, added an umlaut to his last name just because he could, and amassed an immense collection of medical oddities that would later form the basis of Philadelphia’s renowned Mütter Museum. Award-winning writer Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz vividly chronicles how Mütter’s efforts helped establish Philadelphia as a global mecca for medical innovation—despite intense resistance from his numerous rivals. (Foremost among them: Charles D. Meigs, an influential obstetrician who loathed Mütter’s “overly modern” medical opinions.) In the narrative spirit of The Devil in the White City, Dr. Mütter’s Marvels interweaves an eye-opening portrait of nineteenth-century medicine with the riveting biography of a man once described as the “[P. T.] Barnum of the surgery room.”
Download or read book Nineteen Eighty Four written by George Orwell and published by epubli. This book was released on 2021-01-09 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel", often published as "1984", is a dystopian social science fiction novel by English novelist George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, "Nineteen Eighty-Four" centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of persons and behaviours within society. Orwell, himself a democratic socialist, modelled the authoritarian government in the novel after Stalinist Russia. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within politics and the ways in which they are manipulated. The story takes place in an imagined future, the year 1984, when much of the world has fallen victim to perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, historical negationism, and propaganda. Great Britain, known as Airstrip One, has become a province of a totalitarian superstate named Oceania that is ruled by the Party who employ the Thought Police to persecute individuality and independent thinking. Big Brother, the leader of the Party, enjoys an intense cult of personality despite the fact that he may not even exist. The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a diligent and skillful rank-and-file worker and Outer Party member who secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion. He enters into a forbidden relationship with a colleague, Julia, and starts to remember what life was like before the Party came to power.
Download or read book The Invention of Surgery written by David Schneider and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by an author with plenty of experience holding a scalpel, Dr. David Schneider’s The Invention of Surgery is an in-depth biography of the practice that has leapt forward over the centuries from the dangerous guesswork of ancient Greek physicians through the world-changing developments of anesthesia and antiseptic operating rooms to the “implant revolution” of the twentieth century.The Invention of Surgery is history of surgery that explains this dramatic, world-changing progress and highlights the personalities of the discipline's most dynamic historical figures. It links together the lives of the pioneering scientists who first understood what causes disease and how surgery could powerfully intercede in people’s lives, and then shows how the rise of surgery intersected with many of the greatest medical breakthroughs of the last century. And as Schneider argues, surgery has not finished transforming; new technologies are constantly reinventing both the practice of surgery and the nature of the objects we are permanently implanting in our bodies. Schneider considers these latest developments, asking “What’s next?” and analyzing how our conception of surgery has changed alongside our evolving ideas of medicine, technology, and our bodies.
Download or read book Down and Out in Paris and London written by George Orwell and published by Namaskar Books. This book was released on 101-01-01 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell: Step into the world of social observation and personal experience with George Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London." This autobiographical work recounts Orwell's firsthand experiences of poverty and hardship in the two cities. His exploration of the lives of the working class and the struggles of the marginalized provides a poignant and insightful narrative. Why This Book? "Down and Out in Paris and London" offers a gritty and compassionate portrayal of poverty and social inequality, drawing from George Orwell's own experiences. Orwell's keen observations and his exploration of societal disparities make this work a compelling read for those interested in social justice and firsthand accounts of challenging life circumstances.
Download or read book Stories of Your Life and Others written by Ted Chiang and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2010-10-26 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Exhalation, an award-winning short story collection that blends "absorbing storytelling with meditations on the universe, being, time and space ... raises questions about the nature of reality and what it is to be human" (The New York Times). Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—with some sense of normalcy. With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today's most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic. Includes “Story of Your Life”—the basis for the major motion picture Arrival
Download or read book Skeleton Keys written by Riley Black (Brian Switek) and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A provocative and entertaining magical mineral tour through the life and afterlife of bone.” —Wall Street Journal Our bones have many stories to tell, if you know how to listen. Bone is a marvel, an adaptable and resilient building material developed over more than four hundred million years of evolutionary history. It gives your body its shape and the ability to move. It grows and changes with you, an undeniable document of who you are and how you lived. Arguably, no other part of the human anatomy has such rich scientific and cultural significance, both brimming with life and a potent symbol of death. In this delightful natural and cultural history of bone, Brian Switek explains where our skeletons came from, what they do inside us, and what others can learn about us when these artifacts of mineral and protein are all we've left behind. Bone is as embedded in our culture as it is in our bodies. Our species has made instruments and jewelry from bone, treated the dead like collectors' items, put our faith in skull bumps as guides to human behavior, and arranged skeletons into macabre tributes to the afterlife. Switek makes a compelling case for getting better acquainted with our skeletons, in all their surprising roles. Bridging the worlds of paleontology, anthropology, medicine, and forensics, Skeleton Keys illuminates the complex life of bones inside our bodies and out.
Download or read book The Book of Immortality written by Adam Gollner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of one of the most universal human obsessions charts the rise of longevity science from its alchemical beginnings to modern-day genetic interventions and enters the world of those whose lives are shaped by a belief in immortality.
Download or read book Bones Inside and Out written by Roy A. Meals MD and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively, illustrated exploration of the 500-million-year history of bone, a touchstone for understanding vertebrate life and human culture. Human bone is versatile and entirely unique: it repairs itself without scarring, it’s lightweight but responds to stresses, and it’s durable enough to survive for millennia. In Bones, orthopedic surgeon Roy A. Meals explores and extols this amazing material that both supports and records vertebrate life. Inside the body, bone proves itself the world’s best building material. Meals examines the biological makeup of bones; demystifies how they grow, break, and heal; and compares the particulars of human bone to variations throughout the animal kingdom. In engaging and clear prose, he debunks familiar myths—humans don’t have exactly 206 bones—and illustrates common bone diseases, like osteoporosis and arthritis, and their treatments. Along the way, he highlights the medical innovations—from the first X-rays to advanced operative techniques—that enhance our lives and introduces the giants of orthopedic surgery who developed them. After it has supported vertebrate life, bone reveals itself in surprising ways—sometimes hundreds of millions of years later. With enthusiasm and humor, Meals investigates the diverse roles bone has played in human culture throughout history. He highlights allusions to bone in religion and literature, from Adam’s rib to Hamlet’s skull, and uncovers its enduring presence as fossils, technological tools, and musical instruments ranging from the Tibetan thighbone kangling horn to everyday drumsticks. From the dawn of civilization through to the present day, humankind has repurposed bone to serve and protect, and even to teach, amuse, and inspire. Approachable and entertaining, Bones richly illuminates our bodies’ essential framework.
Download or read book VILE BODIES written by Evelyn Waugh and published by Alien Ebooks. This book was released on 2023-06-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vile Bodies is a 1930 novel satirising the bright young things: decadent young London society after World War I. The title appears in a comment made by the novel’s narrator in reference to the characters’ party-driven lifestyle: “All that succession and repetition of massed humanity... Those vile bodies...”
Download or read book The Vaccine Race written by Meredith Wadman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A real jewel of science history...brims with suspense and now-forgotten catastrophe and intrigue...Wadman’s smooth prose calmly spins a surpassingly complicated story into a real tour de force."—The New York Times “Riveting . . . [The Vaccine Race] invites comparison with Rebecca Skloot's 2007 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.”—Nature The epic and controversial story of a major breakthrough in cell biology that led to the conquest of rubella and other devastating diseases. Until the late 1960s, tens of thousands of American children suffered crippling birth defects if their mothers had been exposed to rubella, popularly known as German measles, while pregnant; there was no vaccine and little understanding of how the disease devastated fetuses. In June 1962, a young biologist in Philadelphia, using tissue extracted from an aborted fetus from Sweden, produced safe, clean cells that allowed the creation of vaccines against rubella and other common childhood diseases. Two years later, in the midst of a devastating German measles epidemic, his colleague developed the vaccine that would one day wipe out homegrown rubella. The rubella vaccine and others made with those fetal cells have protected more than 150 million people in the United States, the vast majority of them preschoolers. The new cells and the method of making them also led to vaccines that have protected billions of people around the world from polio, rabies, chicken pox, measles, hepatitis A, shingles and adenovirus. Meredith Wadman’s masterful account recovers not only the science of this urgent race, but also the political roadblocks that nearly stopped the scientists. She describes the terrible dilemmas of pregnant women exposed to German measles and recounts testing on infants, prisoners, orphans, and the intellectually disabled, which was common in the era. These events take place at the dawn of the battle over using human fetal tissue in research, during the arrival of big commerce in campus labs, and as huge changes take place in the laws and practices governing who “owns” research cells and the profits made from biological inventions. It is also the story of yet one more unrecognized woman whose cells have been used to save countless lives. With another frightening virus--measles--on the rise today, no medical story could have more human drama, impact, or urgency than The Vaccine Race.
Download or read book Orwell s Nose written by John Sutherland and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2012 writer John Sutherland permanently lost his sense of smell. At about the same time, he embarked on a rereading of George Orwell and—still coping with his recent disability—noticed something peculiar: Orwell was positively obsessed with smell. In this original, irreverent biography, Sutherland offers a fresh account of Orwell’s life and works, one that sniffs out a unique, scented trail that wends from Burmese Days through Nineteen Eighty-Four and on to The Road to Wigan Pier. Sutherland airs out the odors, fetors, stenches, and reeks trapped in the pages of Orwell’s books. From Winston Smith’s apartment in Nineteen Eighty-Four, which “smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats,” to the tantalizing aromas of concubine Ma Hla May’s hair in Burmese Days, with its “mingled scent of sandalwood, garlic, coconut oil, and jasmine,” Sutherland explores the scent narratives that abound in Orwell’s literary world. Along the way, he elucidates questions that have remained unanswered in previous biographies, addressing gaps that have kept the writer elusively from us. In doing so, Sutherland offers an entertaining but enriching look at one of the most important writers of the twentieth century and, moreover, an entirely new and sensuous way to approach literature: nose first.
Download or read book Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2003-09-23 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in the future when "firemen" burn books forbidden by the totalitarian "brave new world" regime.
Download or read book How Change Happens written by Duncan Green and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "DLP, Developmental Leadership Program; Australian Aid; Oxfam."
Download or read book Survival of the Sickest LP written by Dr. Sharon Moalem and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2007-05-22 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was diabetes evolution's response to the last Ice Age? Did a deadly genetic disease help our ancestors survive the bubonic plagues of Europe? Will a visit to the tanning salon help lower your cholesterol? Why do we age? Why are some people immune to HIV? Can your genes be turned on—or off? Survival of the Sickest is fi lled with fascinating insights and cutting-edge research, presented in a way that is both accessible and utterly absorbing. This is a book about the interconnectedness of all life on earth—and especially what that means for us. Read it. You're already living it.
Download or read book Where Does it Hurt written by Jonathan Bush and published by Portfolio. This book was released on 2014 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jonathan Bush of athenahealth leads readers through the underbelly of American health care, which has missed the customer service revolution of the past two decades, while reflecting on his own journey from ambulance driver to CEO of one of the nation's fastest growing tech companies. He offers a vision and plan for disrupting the current system and pushes to restore the sanctity of the physician-patient experience. The key, he argues, is more innovation, less regulation, and a wider range of choices for customers"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Hereward the Wake written by Charles Kingsley and published by . This book was released on 1867 with total page 796 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
