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Author: Druin Burch
ISBN : B0031RDWM2
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Format: PDF
Direct download links available Free Download Taking the Medicine: A Short History of Medicine's Beautiful Idea, and our Difficulty Swallowing It [Kindle Edition] for everyone book 4shared, mediafire, hotfile, and mirror link
Doctors and patients alike trust the medical profession and its therapeutic powers; yet this trust has often been misplaced. Whether prescribing opium or thalidomide, aspirin or antidepressants, doctors have persistently failed to test their favourite ideas - often with catastrophic results. From revolutionary America to Nazi Germany and modern big-pharmaceuticals, this is the unexpected story of just how bad medicine has been, and of its remarkably recent effort to improve.
It is the history of well-meaning doctors misled by intuition, of the startling human cost of their mistakes and of the exceptional individuals who have helped make things better. Alarming and optimistic, Taking the Medicine is essential reading for anyone interested in how and why to trust the pills they swallow.
Books with free ebook downloads available Free Download Taking the Medicine: A Short History of Medicine's Beautiful Idea, and our Difficulty Swallowing It [Kindle Edition]
- File Size: 519 KB
- Print Length: 337 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1845951506
- Publisher: Vintage Digital (January 15, 2009)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B0031RDWM2
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #528,311 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
Free Download Taking the Medicine: A Short History of Medicine's Beautiful Idea, and our Difficulty Swallowing It
I stumbled on this brilliant book by accident. In an uninspiring airport bookshop, Taking the Medicine was the only thing which looked remotely like brain food. And WOW. Seldom have I read such a page-turner. Months later, I am still thinking about it. The publisher has done an amazing job of under-marketing this gem.
There is indeed much in it about medicine. But the overarching theme is bigger. It is an extraordinarily powerful case for the scientific method. For thousands of years, people calling themselves physicians and doctors have embodied the very essence of NOT-science, working instead on the basis of personal experience, half-baked theory, anecdotes, and wisdom handed down from eminent people. Most physicians still do. And, as this book shows, millions died as a consequence. And they continue to do so, even this century, in the US. If you have ever wondered what science really is about, or if you think science is just common sense, read this book. Burch paints a really startling picture of the lethal mess that can be generated by other ways of knowing.
Andrew Read PhD
Professor of Biology and Entomology, Penn State University
By Andrew Read
Taking the Medicine is an outstanding book which should be read by everyone involved with health care. Physicians and especially those in training to be physicians need to read this book. Many of the mistakes that have been made in medicine, from the earliest days and even until today could have been avoided if we were only able to learn from the mistakes of others that have gone before us. Burch nicely reviews a critical sampling of those mistakes. He discusses the history of the development of the all important randomised, controlled, clinical trials that have helped medicine to advance to it's present state of effectiveness, though still not without problems. Left unsaid is the alternative medicine establishment that appears threatened by such trials, favoring personal experiences and patient commentaries, both of which prove to be unreliable and destined to lead one astray. For the medical as well as the lay reader, Burch provides a wonderful history of therapies and how they came to be developed. Obviously well researched, this book provides many new and fascinating takes on medicines and how they came to be accepted by the medical community and utilized, though not always appropriately. New and often not so complementary insights into those who were once considered medical heroes are provided with discussions of how and where they went wrong.
Burch writes well and has proven capable of holding one's attention throughout the text.I will strongly recommend this book to the medical students that I teach.
Carl E. Bartecchi, M.D.
By Carl Bartecchi
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