The Greatest Benefit to Mankind : A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present - Porter Roy - 1999

833 pages. Covers have moderate creasing. Spine has minimal reading creases. Pages are reasonably tanned. Medicine advances ever faster, and with it not just a capacity to overcome sickness, but to transform the very nature of life. Starting in ancient times, this text charts how this health revolution came about and how life for human beings in the West has ceased, in Hobbes' memorable phrase, to be "nasty, brutish and short." Porter plots the growth of medical specialisms - pharmacology, physiology, anatomy, neurology, bacteriology - and the institutions of medicine - the hospital and asylum - to show how medical advances have often created as many problems as they have solved. The book also shows how the ancient Egyptians treated incipient baldness with a mixture of hippopotamus, lion, crocodile, goose, snake and ibex fat; how a mystery epidemic devastated ancient Athens and brought to an end the domination of that great city; and how lemons did as much as Nelson to defeat Napolean. Quantity Available: 1. Category: Science & Technology; ISBN: 0006374549. ISBN/EAN: 9780006374541. Inventory No: 10043114. By: Porter Roy Year: 1999 Visit our website to view thousands more products like this and order online at: