Customer Reviews

Great Medical Disasters

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a physician and came across this book when I was still in training and I still have it 15 years later. The book is written for a general audience and I think the author does an outstanding job explaining complicated procedures to the layperson. Unlike other reviewers who commented on a lack of "thread" in this text, I think the work is unified and nicely organized in sections. The common thread is medical disasters and Gordon does a fine job switching from surgery cases to epidemiologic detective work. He was the first physician in my career who helped me see Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary) as a human-being rather than a fomite. Kudos to Dr. Gordon!

I read this book here in Brazil.I'm an agronomist, single, 35 years old.I like to read books.

This book isn't for doctors or nurses.It's for general public and really is a comic book.The best chapter of this this book is chapter 2.This chapter talks about, the fatal illness of Frederick, the noble.The useless medicine then available, and the crew of doctors, trying to help the hopelesse Frederick is hilarious.

Read this book and smile.

Richard Gordon, author of "Doctor in the House" and other books in the "Doctor" series, turns to medical history here. But unlike most other books that usually focus on the triumphs of medicine, this one is a catalog of disasters. It is a potpourri of quirky anecdotes. You can read about such items as the London surgeon Robert Liston who prided himself on being quick and amputated a leg under 2 1/2 minutes (and the fingers of his assistant as well), about Sir William Lane who was so obsessed with constipation that he began to remove his patients' large intestines the way others removed appendixes, and how Britain developed an anthrax bomb to combat Hitler's Germany. But while many anecdotes themselves make for hilarious or shocking reading, after a while they begin to grate a bit. Although grouped into sections, there does not seem a strong unifying thread. Perhaps the book might have more appeal if read in installments rather than from cover to cover.

Richard Gordon, author of "Doctor in the House" and other books in the "Doctor" series, turns to medical history here. But unlike most other books that usually focus on the triumphs of medicine, this one is a catalog of disasters. It is a potpourri of quirky anecdotes. You can read about such items as the London surgeon Robert Liston who prided himself on being quick and amputated a leg under 2 1/2 minutes (and the fingers of his assistant as well), about Sir William Lane who was so obsessed with constipation that he began to remove his patients' large intestines the way others removed appendixes, and how Britain developed an anthrax bomb to combat Hitler's Germany. But while many anecdotes themselves make for hilarious or shocking reading, after a while they begin to grate a bit. Although grouped into sections, there does not seem a strong unifying thread. Perhaps the book might have more appeal if read in installments rather than from cover to cover.