The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity / Edition 1

by Roy Porter

Overview

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize

"A panoramic and perfectly magnificent intellectual history of medicine…This is the book that delivers it all." —Sherwin Nuland, author of How We Die

Hailed as "a remarkable achievement" (Boston Globe) and as "a triumph: simultaneously entertaining and instructive, witty and thought-provoking…a splendid and thoroughly engrossing book" (Los Angeles Times), Roy Porter's charting of the history of medicine affords us an opportunity as never before to assess its culture and science and its costs and benefits to mankind. Porter explores medicine's evolution against the backdrop of the wider religious, scientific, philosophical, and political beliefs of the culture in which it develops, covering ground from the diseases of the hunter-gatherers to the more recent threats of AIDS and Ebola, from the clearly defined conviction of the Hippocratic oath to the muddy ethical dilemmas of modern-day medicine. Offering up a treasure trove of historical surprises along the way, this book "has instantly become the standard single-volume work in its field" (The Lancet).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393319804
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	10/17/1999
Series:	The Norton History of Science
Pages:	872
Sales rank:	483,983
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Roy Porter (1946—2002) was professor of the history of medicine at University College, London. His books include Blood and Guts, The Creation of the Modern World, Flesh in the Age of Reason, and The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award.

Editorial Reviews

"[Porter's] perceptiveness is, as usual, scalpel-sharp; his manner genially bedside; his erudition invigorating."

Simon Schama

"To combine enormous knowledge with a delightful style and a highly idiosyncratic point of view is Roy Porter's special gift, and it makes [this] book…alive and fascinating and provocative on every page."

Oliver Sacks