Items related to The Light in the Skull: An Odyssey of Medical Discovery
Synopsis
Discusses how scientists have struggled to understand and treat illnesses, such as the Plague, anthrax, polio, smallpox, and AIDS
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Review
Ronald Glasser, a physician and the author of several books, recounts stories about great medical discoveries that were initially ignored or ridiculed. With great expertise he demonstrates how medical discoveries today are often treated with the same disdain. The detailed biology in The Light in the Skull may prove daunting to the general reader, but those who take up the challenge will learn a tremendous amount about the medical iconoclasts who are conducting valuable research on viruses responsible for current plagues.
From Kirkus Reviews
In this illuminating chronicle of the progress of medicine in understanding and battling infectious diseases, Glasser links the work of today's immunologists, microbiologists, and virologists with the struggles of earlier medical pioneers. Glasser (The Greatest Battle, 1976, etc.) honors the clear-thinking men--Jenner, Semmelweis, Pasteur, and Koch, among others--whose observations challenged the accepted medical dogma of their day and finds telling parallels in more recent events. As he sees it, the refusal in the 1980s of blood-bank officials to consider that their plasma supplies might be contaminated with HIV echoes the refusal of hospital physicians in Semmelweis's day to believe their unwashed hands were causing childbed-fever deaths. Medicine has never done well, Glasser says, when ``dismissing focused observations or ignoring scientific fact . . . and nowhere has this been more obvious than in the study of infections and the relationship of infectious disease to the world of cells, cellular function, and DNA.'' Glasser takes the reader into that world by going back to the very beginnings of life on this planet. The idea that the fundamental unit of life was the cell, is, he says, a prejudice that still exists today. What he focuses on are viruses, minute crystal-like structures, less than one ten-thousandth the diameter of a cell, that evolved along with cellular life, may even have shaped the way cells evolved, and are today recognized as the causes of devastating diseases. More recently, a new kind of infectious disease was discovered when ``mad cow'' disease was found to be transmitted not by a virus but by special proteins called prions. It was, for Glasser, yet another demonstration of observation beating dogma and authority. A well-conducted tour for those curious about genes, viruses, DNA, and our mysterious immune system. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherFaber & Faber
- Publication date1997
- ISBN 10 057119916X
- ISBN 13 9780571199167
- BindingHardcover
- LanguageEnglish
- Edition number1
- Number of pages209
- Rating
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The Light in the Skull : An Odyssey of Medical Discovery
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Faber & Faber, Incorporated, 1997
ISBN 10: 057119916X
ISBN 13: 9780571199167
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The Light in the Skull : An Odyssey of Medical Discovery
Published by
Faber & Faber, Incorporated, 1997
ISBN 10: 057119916X
ISBN 13: 9780571199167
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The Light in the Skull; an Odyssey of Medical Discovery
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ISBN 10: 057119916X
ISBN 13: 9780571199167
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