Customer Reviews

The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Until recently, when asked by his students for an up-to-date, readable, one-volume history of medicine, Roy Porter was at a loss of what to recommend. He therefore decided to bridge the gap, so to speak, and undertake this momentous task himself. In so far as it is possible for someone to adequately accomplish this Herculean task of being both comprehensive and somewhat concise (the material is indeed covered in one volume, though 831 pages long), Roy Porter has succeeded.

Porter has an eye for the unusual, spicing up his reporting with examples of odd concoctions and practices used for various maladies down through the ages, such as the use of pulverized crocodile dung, various herbs, and honey as a contraceptive pessary among the ancient Egyptians, or the English resistance against legal revisions (including town sewer reform among other things) attempting to fight cholera in the 19th century: "We prefer to take our chances with cholera and the rest rath! er than be bullied into health," reported THE TIMES. Most refreshingly, he is not timid in rendering pronouncements for both good and ill on the medical profession, bringing a candor needed to assess the impact of medicine down through the ages. He is thorough without being tedious, educational without being pedantic, and has a fine eye for comedy without being flippant.

As someone with an interest in history and by vocation a surgeon, I found Roy Porter's book a delightfully instructive volume to read. I look forward to returning to peruse it many times in the years ahead.

This book delievers what it was written to deliever. It wasn't meant to be a brain candy, witty, clever, majestic, novel that makes the common person rush out to apply to medical school. It is going to seem "boring" if you don't want to LEARN about THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE. An excellent book preceding this to read would be "Guns, Germs, and Steel," by Jared Diamond to put things in a solid historical reality. This book is five stars, but be ready to engage yourself with the text, buy a highlighter if it helps you concentrate, go back to college, pretend you need to get an A in the History of Western Medicine, because you will have an A+ perspective on medicine if you keep the correct perspective regarding this book.

This is the second review of three I have done of socio-medical histories written of edited by Roy Porter (you can read the others on my reivew page). I read and compared this to The "Cambridge Illustrated History: Medicine", and "Gout, the Patrician Maladay". I thought this was the best approach as people might be like me, looking for a reference work to buy and trying to toss up between which one to get and what the advantages and disadvantages of one over another.

In terms of content I think this is the more comprehensive of the two general reference works. It is over twice the length of Cambridge (over 800 pages in this one compared to not quite 400). It also doesn't have pages taken up with illustrations as Cambridge does. That is probably the thing I like least about this book, there are only three small sections in the middle with some black and white pictures reproduced - I think on comparison I do prefer the slightly more expensive version of having pictures on the pages I am reading for this kind of reference work.

The book is divided into 22 chapters which follow the rise of Western medicine more or less chronologically. There are also chapters included on Chinese and Indian Medicine, but expect the emphasis to be European in both history and development. Each chapter is divided into specific topics which are discussed a structure I quite enjoyed as it broke up the text and made it more readable.

I looked up some specific subjects to compare this with the Cambrige work and in each case (among them Purperal fever, Galen, Resurrectionists) this book had far more detailed and comprehensive explanations, often citing broad statistics. However writing the a social and medical history of mankind is difficult to do full justice even in 800-some pages. It does give a slightly provide more detail but I wasn't really sure that the slightly greater detail was that much of an advantage to make up for the loss of illustration. In the end this is still only slightly more detail on broad trends rather than in-depth discussion. He does cover some people and subjects not dealt with in "Cambridge" including people like Dr James Barry, the first female surgeon (although she was masquerading as a man at the time) - but of course the space available doesn't allow Porter to discuss any of her other significant work as, in terms of forwarding the field of medicine, she was not earth-shattering.

Porter has a very good-natured and readable style of writing though and I really enjoyed it. He breaks this chapters up into short sections and interspeses them with rather nice jokes for instance on page 129 he writes of 'Trotula'said to be a female of 12th century medical school in Salerno but says " 'Dame Trot' was more likely a male writing in drag."

So while I very much enjoyed the book and would certainly have no qualms in recommending it to read at all, I do hold some reservations about it - but strictly in comparison with what else is available.

I found Mr. Porter's excellent history enlightening, and sufficiently engrossing so that I could recommend it even to my nonmedical friends. I enjoyed every chapter and feel that I gained a new perspective on my chosen profession. I don't feel that Mr. Porter completely answered my own most nagging question about what I do, namely, why do people who distrust me and other physicians (or, As Mr. Porter calls us, members of the medical-industrial complex) and yet believe everything alternative therapists tell them? He spoke about the cognitive aspects of this question, but not the emotional ones. Why, as an ER physician, do I hear "I hate doctors" as the introductory remark for a large percentage of my histories? People fear us and not their chiropractors. It is not just a consumer issue, aggravated by the profession's chronic obsession with paternalistic authority over 'the patient', nor is it due to higher expectations from privileged, well-educated and demanding clients. Mr. Porter's analysis was good, but does not address the gut-level fear of people facing the medical profession of today.

This book is a very pleasant and worth reading. It provokes the reader almost on every page because the author was one of the most thoughtful scholars and professors of history of medicine. This masterpiece presents the reader with a very sharp and honest description of the origins and development of Western medicine, obscure and not as heroic or mytical as some would like to believe. This book remits the reader to key questions about the frailty of human health and the stablishment of medicine as science late in human history. The author's style is definitely thought provoking and may be disturbing to some that would prefer to think of Medicine not as a coordinate social struggle preventing and fighting disease with weapons like penicillin, a drug no more than fifty-years old, but maybe rather as an extremely high-tech panacea. Medicine, regardless its Western or Oriental basis, relays upon clever, respectful and humble physicians preventing maladies and treating patients and their suffering, not only diseases.

There is a solid narrative history of the up to 1800 or so and then he gives extended essays on a variety of topics like surgery, tropical medicine or public medicine. One chapter each on ancient Asian and Islamic medicine.

I wish he had fulled out his thesis that as medicne has gotten more successful, medical consumers have gotten more disatisfied with the limits of care.

This wonderful book by Roy Porter is simply the best available history of medicine. It is long and detailed, as befits a huge topic. It is Eurocentric, as is most of modern medicine. It stresses the scientific origins of the development of modern medicine.
While doing all of these things, it remains a very readable book. Porter's writing style is lucid and at times entertaining -- quite welcome attributes in a tome on the history of medicine.
Having waded through other histories of medicine, I believe this is the best. And the paperback version is a wonderful bargain!

There are happily a good many excellent historians of medicine, as reviewing the few good journals will bear out. But regrettably few have tried to take on the monumental task of reviewing it all, at one fell swoop. Small wonder. It risks considerable criticism and contumely, from dolts who can't stay engaged beyond a hundred pages to those whose fertile yet unseeded minds carp at the products of others. This serves well as a course text, and not solely for its linearity and comprehensiveness; but also for its 1) unique organization, into recurring cycles on disciplines (focused on the mental disorders, on surgery, in one era, then again in another era); and 2) for Porter's willingness to wade into the swamp of opinion. It's not just about what happened. It's also about what will happen, and Porter's capacity to have foretold many of the rising controversies in systems of health care is a great tool for showing medical students how to examine and criticize trends. They don't have to agree with his projections, to be able to admire the number of economic and cultural considerations Porter brings into them. I want thoughtful doctors at the end of their educations, not opinionated ones. Lovely, good-humored prose such as Porter's engages them, the evolutions described encourage them, and his clear descriptions enrich the basis for their professional commitment. Criticisms: noted by previous critics, the phtos/illustrations were unfortunately condensed by the publisher into small sections; and Porter's social medical passion at times erupts and exposes him to charges of bias. But I don't know that he misrepresents opinion as fact, at any point, and his data sourcing is very good. My high rating reflects admiration for the combination of ambition, scope, accuracy, and readability, realizing that the perfect history-of-medicine text has yet to be written. This is quite fine, while awaiting a successor to Roy Porter.

Imagine trying to squeeze the entire history of medicine, from the birth of the craft with Hippocrates all the way to the modern age of AIDS and Dr. Kevorkian and all points in between into 800 pages. It's a goal that Roy Porter attempts to make, and he succeeds to some extent.

His primary theme is the development of Western Medicine in Europe and America, and as a historical work it is very well done. He only briefly mentions Eastern medicine and rarely covers "irregular" medical practioners except to say that many members of the public subscribe to their folk remedies.

What he does well is in his coverage of the breadth of the topic. There is hardly an historical point he fails to mention, a significant doctor left out, or a disease left undiscussed. His ability to breathe life into history is exceptional. In what seems like just the span of a few pages, he has covered a huge swath of history seamlessly.

However, the book suffers depth-wise. There isn't hardly enough space to give deep coverage to every topic and Porter skims past many historical items and persons without a second word. The book also has the problem of grouping photos and illustrations together far from the textual contexts that they arise from.

What is most saddening about the history of medicine is that while we have progressed very far in the understanding of disease, we haven't come very far at all in understanding how to Cure disease. Porter pushes this point home as the book draws to a close. What progress has been made has been made primarily in the 20th century with the greater level of technologic progress and antiseptic techniques. However, despite that, acute diseases that vexed humanity for ages still haunt us and chronic diseases that lay dormant in our genes are coming to the fore. The future may hold cures for the diseases we suffer from, but if history is any guide, then management of those diseases is a more likely outcome.

This book works well as a survey of the history of Western Medicine. It provides jumping off points to further research on any number of topics that the reader may not have been previously familiar with. His bibliography and Further Reading sections are chock full of additional texts that will serve anyone wanting more depth. I highly recommend this book.

This is a magnificent overview of the history of disease and medicine from antiquity to the modern age. Porter writes with humour and insight, selecting carefully from the abundance of evidence the significant moments and figures. Both fascinating and informative this book is also extremely good value with its 718 pages, plus bibliography and index. This is my best buy for the year.