Take Your Medicine with a Pinch of Salt

Did you know that medicine was based on fantasy for two thousand years? Have you ever wondered why surgeons are not called doctor? Or how you tell the difference between a quack and physician? Do you know how medicine practiced before antibiotics or vaccinations? Or before doctors understood physiology? And why amazing medical breakthroughs seldom become part of clinical practice? This collection of essays for the general reader tells with wry humour the surprising, unbelievable, sometimes horrifying story of the history of medicine spanning thousands of years from centuries before Hippocrates to the present day and asks whether our expectations of medicine are unrealistic. Did you know that medicine was based on fantasy for two thousand years? This collection of essays for the general reader tells with wry humour the surprising, unbelievable, and sometimes horrifying story of the history of medicine spanning thousands of years from centuries before Hippocrates to the present day and suggests our expectations of medicine have often been unrealistic.