Breakthough!, How The 10 Greatest Discoveries In Medicine Saved Millions And Changed Our View Of The World (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
Reading expands one’s mind and can cause one to be mindful. I was aware that I lived in an age where it is easy to take one’s health for granted – most infections are relatively minor, research and discoveries are honored, sanitation (in America) is an expectation to the point of being a “personal right.” In such an environment, it is important to be reminded of how those assumptions (and many others) came to be possible. This book opened doors I was unaware were closed and answered questions that had been of a nagging nature but knew not what to ask. The book is divided into ten chapters and epilogue. Each chapter addresses the ten most important discoveries of medicine, as determined by polls taken by the British Medical Journal and Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published by the Centers for Disease Control. Each chapter is well researched and amazingly brief considering the material covered in each segment. Moving from the invention of medicine (chapter 1), to Sanitation (2), germs (3), anesthesia (4), x-rays (5), vaccines (6), antibiotics (7), Heredity, Genetics DNA (8), Drugs for Mental Illness (9) and the “Re-discovery” of alternative medicine, the author gives a thorough overview of each discovery. I found myself highlighting much of each chapter as the facts were somehow apparent but surprising. Of all the “ah HA!” moments I found in this book, the largest came early in the book. Sanitation ranks second behind the discovery of medicine (Hippocrates was the first to use disciplined methods to treat the sick) as the most important medical discovery. Having a clean environment keeps disease from: forming, spreading, evolving, etc. Sanitation is a relatively recent concept and is still a foreign idea in many parts of the world. What struck me the most about this discovery is the reality that history is repeating itself; sanitation was discovered to be hugely beneficial and we are becoming increasingly aware of how unsanitary we are making our entire environment. This is not the kind of book one will read in one setting, but it is one any self-respecting “useless facts” Geek will refer to with frequency. I will use this book while preparing for my next big Trivial Pursuit tourney. 9/10ths of a good book, as one of the reviewers on Amazon said. I think the first 9 of his 10 "breakthroughs" were interesting. But "the rise of alternative medicine" did not seem like it belonged on the list. I'm afraid that I'm of the school that there isn't such a thing as "scientific" medicine and "alternative" medicine. There is medicine that works and medicine that doesn't. His criteria for praising alternative medicine seemed idealistic as best and suckered in at the worst.Anyway, I enjoyed the first 9 chapters and nearly threw the book across the room during the 10th. And that is even with using an osteopath as my regular doctor and having had a mother who found acupuncture helpful with her long-term illness!
What do You think about Breakthough!, How The 10 Greatest Discoveries In Medicine Saved Millions And Changed Our View Of The World (2010)?
Very interesting read. And a good refresher on medical breakthroughs over the years.
—brian_anthony_89
An interesting look at some of the most important medical breakthroughs.
—amandakal
Picked this up for free on my Nook one Friday. Really interesting.
—Emilie
