The Healers (Paperback)

The Healers tells how people of different talents and intentions dealt with diseases and health. It tells how many of the greatest contributions to human health were made by people who did not prescribe pills or wield scalpels. Some had medical credentials, many did not. They were chemists, physicists, botanists, microbiologists, entomologists, engineers, psychologists, and people with a variety of other interests. Epidemics raged for centuries during which both victims and wanna-be healers were mired in imaginative superstitions about causes. Treatments generally were a mixed bag of remedies that were sometimes beneficial but mostly harmful or useless. Some inevitably killed more patients than they cured. While it's necessary and desirable for explanatory reasons to discuss diseases, their cause, origins, symptoms, and treatments, the primary focus of the book is on people, their backgrounds, personalities, qualifications, and accomplishments. It tells how they got it right. It tells how some went wrong. It tells how others, some with medical credentials, victimized men, women and children to satisfy their self serving ambitions and social causes. To emphasize the importance of people, good or bad, their names are written in boldface. The Healers is in eight parts covering forty, mostly short, chapters. For example, topics include the recurring battle against insect vectors of disease, about the FDA's tussle with developers of drugs, which can kill or cure, about ambitious and cruel steps to alledgedly improve humanity, about experiments on fellow humans, about the interface of mind and health, and much more. I selectively present the personalities, qualifications and accomplishments of people who made important contributions, for better or worse, to the health and well being of humanity. Most of the healers were competent or well-meaning. Some were saintly, some were evil, You, dear reader, can decide.