From Witch Doctors to Robot Surgeons, 250 Milestones in the History of Medicine by Clifford A. Pickover Sterling, 2012 (($29.95))
This coffee-table book lets readers browse more than 12,000 years of medical advances, including the first pregnancy tests (doctors used to inject a woman's urine into mice, frogs or rabbits to see if it would make the animals ovulate), the first sutures for surgery and the first face transplant in 2005. Pickover, a prolific author with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, notes that he was so fascinated by anatomy in college that he “wore only anatomy T-shirts featuring circulatory systems, dissected frogs, and the like.” His enthusiasm comes through in this illustrated history.
This article was originally published with the title "The Medical Book" in Scientific American 307, 3, 90 (September 2012)
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0912-90c
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Anna Kuchment is a contributing editor at Scientific American and a staff science reporter at the Dallas Morning News. She is also co-author of a forthcoming book about earthquakes triggered by energy production. Follow Anna Kuchment on Twitter Credit: Nick Higgins
