544 pages. Tan boards, inside end pages have maps showing Indian Ocean, Australia .... Story of a doctor and his adventures in 45 countries.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Unknown Binding
This book contains the memoirs Dr. Victor Heiser, international public health administrator for 30 years starting at the turn of the Twentieth Century. The book begins with a riveting account of how Heiser survived the Johnstown Flood by nimbly balancing on the walls of his barn as it swirled in the maelstrom after seeing his entire family swept under the waters in their home. Alone in the world following this disaster, Heiser decided to study medicine, but discovered upon graduation that he much preferred to prevent disease than cure it. He felt that he could do more for more people by fighting public health campaigns than by dealing with individual sick patients. He began his career as a military health inspector overseeing immigration halls at large ports, including Ellis Island. He later moved on to Europe, where he set up health inspection services so that would-be immigrants to the United States could be screened before setting sail from Europe. Following the Spanish American War, he was assigned as chief health officer of the new American colony in the Philippines. After serving almost ten years in the Philippines, he joined the international public health team of the Rockefeller Foundation, where he served as an itinerant medical expert and public health adviser for nearly twenty years.
During his tenure in the Philippines, Heiser worked hard to get cholera, typhoid, plague, smallpox, and leprosy under control. Politically, he was very much a man of his times, and his prose displays the typical racist attitudes of a senior colonial official. He could become very aggravated by what he considered the whimsical behavior of the Filipinos, and he often resorted to draconian measures to contain disease outbreaks. Nevertheless, his intentions were laudable if his methods were sometimes questionable.
Heiser's accounts of his time with the Rockefeller Foundation are fascinating. He explains how the Rockefeller Foundation selected hookworm elimination campaigns as their primary focus: Rockefeller wanted the team to work with a pathogen that was not only common, caused serious harm to society, but also could be seen with the naked eye. He felt that if people could actually see what was making them sick, even if they were illiterate, they would understand the cause and effect relationship between the pathogen and their illness, and would be willing to do their part in supporting the campaign. The hope was that the administration set up in a community for the hookworm elimination campaign would prove itself so useful that the community would want it to continue and expand its scope, leading to the establishment of a full public health service. Heiser relates how well this idea succeeded, not only in the American South, but throughout the world, from Thailand to Abyssinia.
Indeed, aside from the medical details, Heiser's descriptions of his travels are some of the most interesting parts of the book. He tells us of conditions on ships and trains, in cities and country sides around the world. In one of the more fascinating accounts of his travels, he describes the lush green highland paradise of Abyssinia, how in the 1930s he could see terraced orchards of apples and pears from his hotel room in Addis Ababa, and how beautiful the forests and cool clear streams were there. From modern accounts of the Ethiopian environment, it seems those fruit trees and forests are long gone, casualties of civil war, mismanagement, and over-population (perhaps a result of Heiser's work?). Heiser also notes how the Abyssinians, including their leader Haile Selassie considered themselves a separate race from the Black Africans, who they displayed racists attitudes towards, and how they were incensed when the US sent them Black ambassadors. If Heiser's contemporary account of Abyssian society is indeed accurate, it puts Rastafarians' idolization of Selassie in a new light, indeed.
During his tenure in the Philippines, Heiser worked hard to get cholera, typhoid, plague, smallpox, and leprosy under control. Politically, he was very much a man of his times, and his prose displays the typical racist attitudes of a senior colonial official. He could become very aggravated by what he considered the whimsical behavior of the Filipinos, and he often resorted to draconian measures to contain disease outbreaks. Nevertheless, his intentions were laudable if his methods were sometimes questionable.
Heiser's accounts of his time with the Rockefeller Foundation are fascinating. He explains how the Rockefeller Foundation selected hookworm elimination campaigns as their primary focus: Rockefeller wanted the team to work with a pathogen that was not only common, caused serious harm to society, but also could be seen with the naked eye. He felt that if people could actually see what was making them sick, even if they were illiterate, they would understand the cause and effect relationship between the pathogen and their illness, and would be willing to do their part in supporting the campaign. The hope was that the administration set up in a community for the hookworm elimination campaign would prove itself so useful that the community would want it to continue and expand its scope, leading to the establishment of a full public health service. Heiser relates how well this idea succeeded, not only in the American South, but throughout the world, from Thailand to Abyssinia.
Indeed, aside from the medical details, Heiser's descriptions of his travels are some of the most interesting parts of the book. He tells us of conditions on ships and trains, in cities and country sides around the world. In one of the more fascinating accounts of his travels, he describes the lush green highland paradise of Abyssinia, how in the 1930s he could see terraced orchards of apples and pears from his hotel room in Addis Ababa, and how beautiful the forests and cool clear streams were there. From modern accounts of the Ethiopian environment, it seems those fruit trees and forests are long gone, casualties of civil war, mismanagement, and over-population (perhaps a result of Heiser's work?). Heiser also notes how the Abyssinians, including their leader Haile Selassie considered themselves a separate race from the Black Africans, who they displayed racists attitudes towards, and how they were incensed when the US sent them Black ambassadors. If Heiser's contemporary account of Abyssian society is indeed accurate, it puts Rastafarians' idolization of Selassie in a new light, indeed.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book has been one of my favorites for many years. I read it first in paperback, and after that fell apart I managed to find a used hardback copy. The book is the autobiography of Victor Heiser, M.D. The book starts with a bang with Heiser as a teenager surviving the Johnstown flood. (His parents were killed.) The rest of the book is mostly anecdotes taken from his medical career. Dr. Heiser is perhaps the ultimate example of the international public health doctor in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He spent much of his career as the U.S.'s Director of Health in the Philippines. Much of the book is organized by disease: he discusses smallpox, plague, cholera, leprosy, hookworm, etc. Heiser's main point is that health comes mostly from vaccination, clean water, good food, sanitation, and isolation of people sick with contagious diseases, not from expensive medical care.
Nearly every page of the book has a great story; you get the impression that Heiser must have been a fantastic dinner guest. Heiser's stories of vaccinating the uncivilized tribesmen of the Philippines are medical adventure at its best.
Towards the end of his career Heiser became a representative of the Rockefeller Foundation and spent his time traveling the world selling public health to the masses. The book bogs down a bit here; sometimes you wish Heiser would stop bragging about the number of times he's visited each country and tell more stories.
For the modern reader, Heiser's book is still surprisingly relevant, though maybe not in ways he intended. Heiser and other public health doctors are perhaps the persons most responsible for today's overpopulation of the earth. The fact is that if you save a life, you must prevent a birth somewhere else, or risk overrunning your resources. Heiser had no concept of limits. In my opinion, today's doctors have for the most part still never understood this, with the result that they often cause more harm than good.
Another important point for modern readers is the concept of diminishing returns for medical care. Heiser's book shows this clearly. Heiser, who was starting with Philippine peasants that had never seen a doctor, could save thousands of lives with a few dollars' worth of vaccines. Today we may spend a million dollars on a single transplant patient or premature baby. Are we really getting our moneys' worth? I don't think so.
Overall, a very good book if you can find it.
Nearly every page of the book has a great story; you get the impression that Heiser must have been a fantastic dinner guest. Heiser's stories of vaccinating the uncivilized tribesmen of the Philippines are medical adventure at its best.
Towards the end of his career Heiser became a representative of the Rockefeller Foundation and spent his time traveling the world selling public health to the masses. The book bogs down a bit here; sometimes you wish Heiser would stop bragging about the number of times he's visited each country and tell more stories.
For the modern reader, Heiser's book is still surprisingly relevant, though maybe not in ways he intended. Heiser and other public health doctors are perhaps the persons most responsible for today's overpopulation of the earth. The fact is that if you save a life, you must prevent a birth somewhere else, or risk overrunning your resources. Heiser had no concept of limits. In my opinion, today's doctors have for the most part still never understood this, with the result that they often cause more harm than good.
Another important point for modern readers is the concept of diminishing returns for medical care. Heiser's book shows this clearly. Heiser, who was starting with Philippine peasants that had never seen a doctor, could save thousands of lives with a few dollars' worth of vaccines. Today we may spend a million dollars on a single transplant patient or premature baby. Are we really getting our moneys' worth? I don't think so.
Overall, a very good book if you can find it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By pensil2pen
Format:Hardcover
You don't have to know anything about medicine to enjoy one of the most fascinating true-life stories that I have ever read. In his own words, Doctor Victor Heiser, shares story after story of fighting pandemics around the world in the years of approx. 1900 to 1920. It is amazing to read how it used to be in countries around the world before the world of medicine began to work together thanks to the Rockefeller Foundation, which he was a part of from the beginning (as described in the book). The stories are not only fascinating dealing with malaria, Cholera, leprosy and beyond but at times touching and other times hysterically funny! I still chuckle to think of him taking sick guinea pigs (in order to get a strain of "icterohemorrhagica "to the Rockefeller Institute in New York from Japan) across the ocean when a dead corpse in the wildly pitching ship's morgue landed on his shoulders as he was cutting out a mortally sick pig's liver! One wrong move and he would have the disease himself! I highly suggest this book if you love history, culture, medicine and just plain interesting stories of a day gone by.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Required Reading for Every Public Health Professional
This is an outstanding book. It should be required reading for every health professional, particularly individuals in the field of public health. Dr. Read more
Published 11 days ago by Winston Dean
5.0 out of 5 stars
Item! Wacky doctor tours world
Very interesting book and a great read. Some very interesting comments from the doctor regarding culture that really could apply today. Read more
Published on April 7, 2010 by John D. Hulsing
5.0 out of 5 stars
don't pull an all nighter reading in to the sun on a bicycle
Land of the midnight sun.
Reverries.. WBYEATS sailing to byzantium innisfree
The technical mind, AgFd ACS, FSEEE
Medical doctors... Read more
Reverries.. WBYEATS sailing to byzantium innisfree
The technical mind, AgFd ACS, FSEEE
Medical doctors... Read more
Published on December 5, 2004 by Douglas S Gillman
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