An unpedantic look at the extent to which the ``quiet art'' of healing is based on scientific research, by a professor concerned about the growing public disillusionment with modern medicine. Weatherall (Medicine/Oxford Univ.) argues persuasively that research in the basic medical sciences is essential to progress in health care. He provides a mini-history of scientific medicine, showing how advances in medical science usually result from the coming together of knowledge in various fields. Good clinical research, he notes, is initiated both by careful bedside observation and by curiosity-driven science. To illustrate how medical research works and how progress in patient care is made, he examines the 19th-century achievements made in the knowledge, and then treatment, of diabetes, pernicious anemia, and infectious diseases. He then turns to 20th-century medicine's grappling with heart disease, an area in which he says medicine as yet has very little real understanding. Consequently, he argues, treatment is based on both science and guesswork, and the results are a mixture of success, failure, and uncertainty. To those who argue that it would be better to concentrate our efforts on preventing disease by improving the environment and changing our lifestyles rather than devoting resources to high- tech medicine and laboratory research, Weatherall responds that delivery of health care depends on a genuine understanding of the causes, prevention, and management of disease, and this understanding can only come from research based on solid science. The complexity of both the human organism and disease mean that prevention and radical cures for our most persistent problems, the degenerative diseases of aging, will be hard to come by, but he asserts that molecular biology holds great promise for improvements in diagnosis and treatment. An articulate and cautiously optimistic defense of medical research. (Illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-393-03744-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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