FAMOUS FIRST IN MEDICINE

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1974

The Crooks allot their ""famous firsts"" one page with facing photo (or painting reproduction) apiece, beginning predictably with skull trephining (or trepanning), the ""first known surgical procedure,"" and following the dotted line through Hippocrates (""first to treat medicine as science""), Leeuwenhoek (""first to see microscopic life""), the first use of stethoscope, ophthalmoscope, anesthetic, antiseptic, and different vaccines, the discovery of the X-ray, radium, penicillin and the cause of childbed fever, and so on up to Dr. Barnard and the heart transplant (a sensational first that hasn't quite lived up to the fanfare the Crooks still seem to credit). The routine treatment is generally adequate but there is no evidence that the authors have taken intensive care to elucidate the material (we are told that ""Dr. Schick did a great deal of work on serum sickness. He also laid the groundwork for the understanding of allergies. This was the basis for the Schick test"" for diphtheria -- but not how this is so), and of course this is far from the first such survey.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 72

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1974

Categories: NONFICTION