As an introduction to early modern thinking and the impact of past ideas on present lives, this book can find few equals and no superiors. Porter is a witty, humane writer with an extraordinary vocabulary and a sparkling sense of fun. Whether he is quoting from obscure medical texts or analysing scabrous diaries, dishing the dirt on long-dead bigwigs or evoking sympathy for human suffering, his grasp is masterly and his erudition appealing. I wish I could read it again for the first time: you can.' Times Educational Supplement, Book of the Week In this startlingly brilliant sequel to the prize-winning ENLIGHTENMENT Roy Porter completes his lifetime's work, offering a magical, enthusiastic and charming account of the writings of some of the most attractive figures ever to write English.
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize "A panoramic and perfectly magnificent intellectual history of medicine…This is the book that delivers it all." —Sherwin Nuland, author of How We Die Hailed as "a remarkable achievement" (Boston Globe) and as "a triumph: simultaneously entertaining and instructive, witty and thought-provoking…a splendid and thoroughly engrossing book" (Los Angeles Times), Roy Porter's charting of the history of medicine affords us an opportunity as never before to assess its culture and science and its costs and benefits to mankind. Porter explores medicine's evolution against the backdrop of the wider religious, scientific, philosophical, and political beliefs of the culture in which it develops, covering ground from the diseases of the hunter-gatherers to the more recent threats of AIDS and Ebola, from the clearly defined conviction of the Hippocratic oath to the muddy ethical dilemmas of modern-day medicine. Offering up a treasure trove of historical surprises along the way, this book "has instantly become the standard single-volume work in its field" (The Lancet).
An extraordinary city, London grew from a backwater in the Classical Age into an important medieval city and significant Renaissance urban center to a modern colossus--full of a free people ever evolving. Roy Porter touches the pulse of his hometown and makes it our own, capturing London's fortunes, people, and imperial glory with vigor and wit. 58 photos.
From a critically acclaimed author comes an engagingly written and groundbreaking new work that highlights the long-underestimated British role in delivering the Enlightenment to the modern world. Porter reveals how the monumental transformation of thinking in Great Britain influenced wider developments elsewhere. of color illustrations.
This fascinating story of madness reveals the radically different perceptions of madness and approaches to its treatment, from antiquity to the present day. Roy Porter explores what we really mean by 'madness', covering an enormous range of topics from witches to creative geniuses, electric shock therapy to sexual deviancy, psychoanalysis to prozac. The origins of current debates about how we define and deal with insanity are examined through eyewitness accounts of those treating patients, writers, artists, and the mad themselves.
Released is primarily the story of the author, Roy Porter. It tells of the faithfulness of God through his ups and downs. The book includes items of historical interest which may be new to some readers. The story also records the involvement of the Porter family in the lead up to the Christian ministry in which Roy and his wife Anne eventually became involved. The story of their ministry is told in the sequel to this story 'Once Upon an Egg'. Released is primarily the story of the author, Roy Porter. It tells of the faithfulness of God through his ups and downs. All profits after expenses go to support various missionary organisations, for details contact Roy on robertroyporter@aol.com or 07802559713
First published in 1987. Even as the professionalism of medicine progressed, many sufferers continued to rely on what would now be termed "fringe" practitioners – quacks, backstreet surgeons, bone-setters, Thomsonian botanists, holists and naturalists. Many types of fringe medicine were popular in particular circles or reflected the political or religious preoccupations of their practitioners. Anti-establishment radicals might favour natural medicine, Christian Scientists would reject the medical aid, "Physical Puritans" would concentrate on homeopathy, hydropathy and vegetarianism to create health rather than counter disease. Some diseases, particularly venereal ones, allowed practitioners to play unscrupulously on the guilt of their patients. The end of the period saw professionalism establish itself in many areas, for example with the foundation in 1852 of the Pharmaceutical Society, and conflicts of fringe and orthodoxy became the fiercer. The essays collected in this volume all present new research on this fascinating and diverse period in the history of medicine.
Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness is a series of Bible-based devotionals designed to help and encourage those who have, are going or will encounter times of hardships whether they be practical, physical, emotional or spiritual. They are based on the authors own experiences he journeyed through the wilderness that was - life! Roy was an engineering supervisor with a large American synthetic fibre company, his wife Anne was a midwife. They both then resigned their employment to become missionary directors with Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF)? Their ministry was to children and teenagers in Northern Ireland, Inishown and in the Isle of Man. Now retired, Roy is the author of children's short stories, Christian novels and devotionals. All profits from Roy's books go to support church-based outreaches and various worldwide missionary organisations.
The Way Through the Wilderness is a series of Bible-based devotionals designed to help and encourage those who have, are going or will encounter times of hardships whether they be practical, physical, emotional or spiritual. They are based on the authors own experiences he journeyed through the wilderness that was - life! Roy was an engineering supervisor with a large American synthetic fibre company, his wife Anne was a midwife. They both then resigned their employment to become missionary directors with Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF)? Their ministry was to children and teenagers in Northern Ireland, Inishown and in the Isle of Man. Now retired, Roy is the author of children's short stories, Christian novels and devotionals. All profits from Roy's books go to support church-based outreaches and various worldwide missionary organisations.
Gout has been seen as a disease afflicting upper-class males of superior wit, genius and creativity. It is also believed to protect its sufferers and assure long life. This study investigates the history of gout and offers a perspective on medical and social history, sex, prejudice and class.
Drawing on a multitude of sources and an abundance of unfamiliar anecdotes, Inwood tirelessly explores the history of a vibrant and multi-cultural city defined as much by the mob as the monarch. BOMC Selection. 32 pp. illustrations. 20 maps. Indexed. Bibliography.
First published in 1992, this book explores how we come to hold our present attitudes towards health, sickness and the medical profession. Roy Porter argues that the outlook of the age of Enlightenment was crucially important in the creation of modern thinking about disease, doctors and society. To illustrate this viewpoint, he focuses on Thomas Beddoes, a prominent doctor of the eighteenth century and examines his challenging, pugnacious, radical and often amusing views on a wide range of issues concerning the place of illness and medicine in society. Many modern debates in medicine continue to echo the topics which Beddoes himself discussed in his ever-trenchant and provocative manner. This book will be of interest to those studying the history of medicine, social history and the Enlightenment.
Premodern society in England was overshadowed by illness and the threat of death. Disease descended suddenly, selecting individual victims or attacking entire households and the community at large. What did people do when they fell sick? The authors investigate the well-established tradition of self-diagnosis and medication, called 'family medicine' or 'kitchen physic'; the use of traditional healers, such as midwives, itinerants, and 'wise women'; and the flourishing world of quacks whose nostrums promised to restore one's youth or to cure cancer. Doctors and the medical profession were not held in especially high regard ('If the world knew the villainy and knavery - besides ignorance - of the physicians and apothecaries, the people would throw stones at 'em as they walked in the streets'). The authors examine the problems and opportunities of practitioners in terms of treatments, renumeration, and social status and describe how practitioners tried to achieve ascendancy over their often suspicious patients. What did doctors have to offer the sick in the centuries before Victorian professionalization and the birth of scientific medicine?
A history of therapeutic practices, from ancient rituals to the age of computers, explores traditions from the East and the West, and argues that a combination of the Eastern and Western approaches would provide the best healing
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