Abstract
Medicine has traveled a long and illustrious path over the past millennia, beginning with the first instance when one of our long-forgotten ancestors noticed that a sick or injured person recovered following some earnest appeal to the spirits of nature and culminating in the recent major milestone of the mapping of the human genome. This chapter will take us along that trail as we look in on the lives of the “Great Doctors,” the heroes of medical history. As your guide, I will point out only what I believe to be the most significant highlights. The real purpose of this chapter is not to make you a medical historian, but to put medical history in perspective so that the 12 chapters of this book make sense in the context of our heritage.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Martí-Ibáñez F. Epilogue: to be a doctor. In: A Prelude to Medical History. New York, NY: MD Publications; 1961:197.
Reiss DY. Hippocrates—first medical writer. Med Comm. 1982;10:83–87.
Hippocrates. Aphorisms. Kila, MT: Kessinger Publishing Company; 2004.
Marcus Aurelius. Meditations, III. 3.
Cahill T. How the Irish Saved Civilization. New York, NY: Anchor; 1996.
Rosner F. The life of Moses Maimonides, a prominent medieval physician. Einstein Q J Biol Med. 2002;19:125–128.
Balint M. The Doctor, His Patient and the Illness. New York, NY: International Universities Press; 1957.
Moore W. The Knife Man: The Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter: Father of Modern Surgery. New York, NY: Broadway Books; 2005.
Carrell JL. The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox. New York, NY: Dutton; 2003.
Gawande A. On washing hands. N Engl J Med. 2004;350:1283–1286.
Osler W. Aequanimitas with Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine. Philadelphia, PA: Blakiston; 1932.
Hiatt MD. Around the continent in 180 days: the controversial journey of Abraham Flexner. Pharos Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Med Soc. 1999;62: 18–24.
Bollet AJ. Fleming’s discovery of penicillin: a chance observation he couldn’t repeat. Resid Staff Physician. July 1981:29–33.
Scarce M. Harbinger of plague: a bad case of gay bowel syndrome. J Homosex. 1997;34:1–35.
International HapMap Consortium. A haplotype map of the human genome. Nature. 2005;437:1299–1320.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Taylor, R.B. (2008). Heroes in Medical History ab[Abstract. In: White Coat Tales. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73080-6_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73080-6_1
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-73079-0
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-73080-6
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)