Product Description
Hailed as "a remarkable achievement" (Boston Sunday Globe) and as "a triumph: simultaneously entertaining and instructive, witty and thought-provoking . . . a splendid and thoroughly engrossing book" (Los Angeles Times), Roy Porter's charting of the history of medicine affords us an opportunity as never before to assess its culture and science and its costs and benefits to mankind. Porter explores medicine's evolution against the backdrop of the wider religious, scientific, philosophical, and political beliefs of the culture in which it develops, covering ground from the diseases of the hunter-gatherers to today's threat of AIDS and ebola, from the clearly defined conviction of the Hippocratic oath to the muddy ethical dilemmas of modern-day medicine. Offering up a treasure trove of historical surprises along the way, this book "has instantly become the standard single-volume work in its field" (The Lancet). The Greatest Benefit to Mankind was a finalist for the National Book Critic's Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and a New York Times Notable Book of 1998.

Amazon.com Review
Samuel Johnson once called the medical profession "the greatest benefit to mankind." In the 20th century, the quality of that benefit has improved more and more rapidly than at any other comparable time in history. With all the capabilities of modern medicine's practicioners, however, we as a people are as worried about our health as ever.

Roy Porter, a social historian of medicine the London's Wellcome Institute, has written an dauntingly thick history of how medical thinking and practice has risen to the challenges of disease through the centuries. But delve into its pages, and you'll find one marvelous bit of history after another. The obvious highlights are touched upon--Hippocrates introduces his oath, Pasteur homogenizes, Jonas Salk produces the polio vaccine, and so on--but there's also Dr. Francis Willis's curing of The Madness of King George, W. T. G. Morton's hucksterish use of ether in surgery, and research on digestion conducted using a man with a stomach fistula (if you don't know what that means, you may not want to know). Porter is straightforward about his deliberate focus on Western medical traditions, citing their predominant influence on global medicine, and with The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, he has produced a volume worthy of that tradition's legacy.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 18 reviews)

Though Roy is gone, his memory lives on

Roy has an erudite style and a level of detail that makes this book both a joy to read and a reference to use frequently. His references and bibliography alone are very extensive - the kind I would expect in a PhD - even though he claims they are not exhaustive. Clearly, Roy was setting a standard for his students, colleagues and followers. His illustrations show his debt to the Wellcome foundation.
February 22, 2007

Simply the Best History of Medicine

This wonderful book by Roy Porter is simply the best available history of medicine. It is long and detailed, as befits a huge topic. It is Eurocentric, as is most of modern medicine. It stresses the scientific origins of the development of modern medicine.
While doing all of these things, it remains a very readable book. Porter's writing style is lucid and at times entertaining -- quite welcome attributes in a tome on the history of medicine.
Having waded through other histories of medicine, I believe this is the best. And the paperback version is a wonderful bargain!
November 27, 2006

My Best Buy this year!

This is a magnificent overview of the history of disease and medicine from antiquity to the modern age. Porter writes with humour and insight, selecting carefully from the abundance of evidence the significant moments and figures. Both fascinating and informative this book is also extremely good value with its 718 pages, plus bibliography and index. This is my best buy for the year.
August 10, 2005

The book was definitely worth the price of admission.

Although very tedious, this book was chock full of information. Mind you, I would never have purchased this book for leisure reading. (This was a required text for a college class) I did, however, find this book both interesting, intellectually stimulating, and detailed.

August 02, 2005

Hefty, tries to cover everything, but lacks details

Imagine trying to squeeze the entire history of medicine, from the birth of the craft with Hippocrates all the way to the modern age of AIDS and Dr. Kevorkian and all points in between into 800 pages. It's a goal that Roy Porter attempts to make, and he succeeds to some extent.

His primary theme is the development of Western Medicine in Europe and America, and as a historical work it is very well done. He only briefly mentions Eastern medicine and rarely covers "irregular" medical practioners except to say that many members of the public subscribe to their folk remedies.

What he does well is in his coverage of the breadth of the topic. There is hardly an historical point he fails to mention, a significant doctor left out, or a disease left undiscussed. His ability to breathe life into history is exceptional. In what seems like just the span of a few pages, he has covered a huge swath of history seamlessly.

However, the book suffers depth-wise. There isn't hardly enough space to give deep coverage to every topic and Porter skims past many historical items and persons without a second word. The book also has the problem of grouping photos and illustrations together far from the textual contexts that they arise from.

What is most saddening about the history of medicine is that while we have progressed very far in the understanding of disease, we haven't come very far at all in understanding how to Cure disease. Porter pushes this point home as the book draws to a close. What progress has been made has been made primarily in the 20th century with the greater level of technologic progress and antiseptic techniques. However, despite that, acute diseases that vexed humanity for ages still haunt us and chronic diseases that lay dormant in our genes are coming to the fore. The future may hold cures for the diseases we suffer from, but if history is any guide, then management of those diseases is a more likely outcome.

This book works well as a survey of the history of Western Medicine. It provides jumping off points to further research on any number of topics that the reader may not have been previously familiar with. His bibliography and Further Reading sections are chock full of additional texts that will serve anyone wanting more depth. I highly recommend this book.
July 27, 2005

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

The Social Transformation of American Medicine
by Paul Starr

The History of Medicine: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
by William Bynum

The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life
by Nancy Tomes

The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine
by Roy Porter

The Discovery of Insulin: Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition
by Michael Bliss