Doctors and Discoveries: Lives that created today鈥檚 medicine by John Galbraith Simmons, Houghton Mifflin, $24, ISBN 0618152768 Reviewed by Roy Herbert
THIS is a heavy book, weighing in at nearly a kilo. It also promises to be heavy in another sense, as a collection of short biographies of no fewer than 86 people who have contributed to the progress of medicine, from Hippocrates onwards. Your spirits may sink a little on opening it. There are already plenty of books, all worthy ones, dealing with the lives of such as Harvey, Koch, Pasteur, Jenner and Banting, pioneers all. It鈥檚 well-trodden territory.
But this is not one of the simply worthy ones. Doctors and Discoveries is brilliantly written. The author鈥檚 introduction is witty and perceptive, an entertaining preamble to a strikingly comprehensive history of the practice of medicine that most of us know something about, but not much.
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Neither is the book a plodding chronology, with the familiar protagonists decorating the years. It starts with a section entitled 鈥淐ompass of Western Medicine鈥� and the first biography is of Charles Darwin. Following sections, though of course covering the usual individuals, contain many names who are less recognisable, despite their importance to the slow expansion of medical knowledge.
It wasn鈥檛 until the 19th century that medical knowledge became medical science with all that this implied for discovery and clinical practice. It became possible to deal with what had seemed invincible diseases, and even to eradicate some.
As the world developed, technology brought its own peculiar medical problems, the spread of AIDS for instance, and the need for vast amounts of money to maintain medical services and research. All these developments are mirrored in the entries here. It鈥檚 a reference book, yes, but it鈥檚 one written with unusual elegance, making it a pleasure to consult and even more so to browse. That should keep it from spending much time on the shelf and merit a paperback edition.