Book description
Doctors and patients alike trust the medical profession and its
therapeutic powers; yet this trust has often been misplaced. Whether
prescribing opium or thalidomide, aspirin or antidepressants, doctors
have persistently failed to test their favourite ideas - often with
catastrophic results. From revolutionary America to Nazi Germany and
modern big-pharmaceuticals, this is the unexpected story of just how
bad medicine has been, and of its remarkably recent effort to improve.
It is the history of well-meaning doctors misled by intuition, of
the startling human cost of their mistakes and of the exceptional
individuals who have helped make things better. Alarming and
optimistic, Taking the Medicine is essential reading for anyone
interested in how and why to trust the pills they swallow.
Druin Burch works as a hospital doctor in Oxford, and is the author
of
Digging up the Dead
, a biography of the Victorian surgeon Astley Paston Cooper.
