Doctors: The Biography of Medicine Paperback – January 15, 1995

I teach the history of medicine and anatomy at a U.S. medical school and I spend a lot of time reviewing the available books so that I can sharpen up my lectures. I'm not going to claim that medical history is the most electrifying topic for first-year medical students, but when it is presented properly it can be very engaging. This is exactly what Dr. Nuland has done with this book.Doctors is a well-organized and readable text and Dr. Nuland has done a great deal of research but more importantly, he has obviously practiced how to deliver the stories in a way that is suspenseful and satisfying. He starts chronologically and moves from Hippocrates, through Andreas Vesalius, William Harvey, Rudolph Virchow, Helen Taussig, describing the individuals responsible for the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of the history of medical practice as we see it today.His narrative relates strictly to the history of Western medicine and the influences that have shaped it. He does not go into any details regarding Eastern medicine or other medical practices since this is not directly related to the main theme of the book. The only topic I wish he had spent more time covering was the Islamic physicians of the middle ages. Western medicine (along with all the sciences) were maintained at a high level in the Muslim societies of the middle ages before passing into the newly-founded European Universities.By following the history of medicine through the persons (and extreme personalities) that influenced it, Dr. Nuland is able to educate and entertain. I have listened repeatedly to the lectures that he has produced with the Teaching Company and it is nice to know that he writes as well as he speaks. I have reviewed other books on the topic but so far this is my undisputed favorite.

Gives a person a great overview of the History and breakthroughs in medicine. Especially demonstrates the importance of Anatomy and Physiology for understanding the human body.

Really enjoyed the book. It goes through much of the history of medicine with each chapter focusing on a famous physician-scientist who profoundly changed medicine as we practice it today. A few of the chapters cover more than one person such as the 'discovery' / first implementation of anesthesia in surgery. I will say that Dr Nuland is a surgeon and there is a little bit of a bias towards surgical advances in medicine but others are still represented. But, for example, it's Halsted that has a chapter in the book and not Osler. I'm going into surgery so this was a plus for me--and you will still learn a lot of other stuff about medicine from this book--but you may not like that if you're looking for more internal medicine type things. My only real complaint is that the book may go into too much detail. Dr Nuland does a phenomenal job of detailing many of these individuals personal lives. Personally I would have preferred slightly shorter chapters but more of them teaching me about other great discoveries and discoverers that I wasn't familiar with. However what you get is good. Well researched, well written, and you absolutely don't have to have any real medical knowledge to appreciate this book and understand it. I would certainly recommend.

Must read book for those who enjoy the history of medicine. Nuland manages to tell fascinating stories of great medical advances in readable brief stories.

Very well written, interesting book. I learned a lot about the history of medicine.

This book utterly disregards the Islamic contributions from various Caliphates to the advancement of medicine. The Reinassance wasn't a reawakening but a continuation of where Islamic scientists left off. Shame on the author for omitting centuries of medical advancements.

when I first read this book I was in the final year of Medical School and I was immediately catch by the style of the author. Sherwin Nuland is a veteran surgeon and his love toward his profession came out from every page of this "biography" of Medicine. An fascinating but rigorous work by a gifted author.

Nuland does a fine job of linking the crucial developments in medical history through a close examination of the doctors who made them possible. Unlike "How We Die," this book doesn't delve so much into the technical aspects of the medical discoveries as it does paint a rich picture of the intellectual and moral environment from which they emerged. The focus is on the men and women who were the true innovators and independent thinkers of their time.Occasionally, Nuland's enthusiasm for his topic leads him on some unnecessary tangents in covering some of the less interesting details of his subjects, but he invariably gets back on track in time to connect the reader to the next medical advancement. My only disappointment is that I wish he spent more time explaining in depth the technical aspects of the discoveries, which he is brilliant at in translating for the layman, and less time investigating the trivial quirks of his subjects. However, in his defense, the subtitle does make it clear that it is a "biography," and an overall good one at that.