MEN OF MEDICINE

From the days when all the ""doctor"" asked his patient was whether or not he had broken any taboos up to the modern miracles of the x-ray and the wonder drugs, this is an accomplished distillation of social trends and discoveries which have made an increasingly healthier population. How the medicine man gradually became a physician; the early science in Persia, Egypt and Greece (there is a fascinating differentiation here between the schools of Aesklepios and Hippocrates); Galen, the Salerno school, Paracelsus, Vesalius, Harvey, Jenner, Pastour, Walter Reed and Alexander Fleming- all these and more come up for simplified discussion that should both interest and stimulate. Katherine Shippen's other books, equally readable and competent, in the science field, have included Miracle in Motion and Men, Microscopes and Living Things.