Medical History

When three-month-old Lia Lee arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos.

Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their 12 children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins—aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the 10 Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic.

Welcome to The DNA Guide for Adoptees: How to use genealogy and genetics to uncover your roots, connect with your biological family, and better understand your medical history. If you are an adoptee, there’s likely missing information about your past and you hope to change that. You’ve come to the right place! This book is for you if you have hope that DNA testing might open up the search for information about yourself, your origins, and your future. We’ve worked hard to compile the resources in this book and explain in plain English how DNA and genealogical records fit together like ...

The modern American public has been caught in the middle of a battle over the sun. The smiling yellow orb that we knew and loved as children had become vilified as a cancer causing, wrinkle inducing, fiend in the public imagination. The story behind this transformation-the paradigm shift in public opinion is as interesting as any that can be told. By trying to save our skins, we may have lost our health by depleting our bodies of vitamin D-creating a man-made epidemic of a myriad number of diseases? Is there a way to fix this? Could something as simple as sitting out in the sun for a few ...

Cystic fibrosis was once a mysterious disease that killed infants and children. Now it could be the key to healing millions with genetic diseases of every type - from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to diabetes and sickle cell anemia. Told from the perspectives of the patients, families, physicians, scientists, and philanthropists fighting on the front lines, Breath from Salt is a remarkable story of unlikely scientific and medical firsts, of setbacks and successes, and of people who refused to give up hope....

An acclaimed medical expert and patient advocate offers an eye-opening look at many common and widely used medical interventions that have been shown to be far more harmful than helpful. Yet, surprisingly, despite clear evidence to the contrary, most doctors continue to recommend them.

For centuries, the human heart seemed beyond our understanding: an inscrutable shuddering mass that was somehow the driver of emotion and the seat of the soul. As cardiologist and best-selling author Sandeep Jauhar tells in The Heart, it was only recently that we demolished age-old taboos and devised the transformative procedures that changed the way we live. Deftly alternating between historical episodes and his own work, Jauhar tells the colorful and little known story of the doctors who risked their careers and the patients who risked their lives to know and heal our most vital organ.

Discover the fascinating intersections of history, medicine, and the human experience in "Illness and Infamy." This captivating book delves into the lives of historical figures and notorious criminals, examining how their medical conditions influenced their actions and shaped the course of history. From the impact of pandemics on world events to the personal struggles of leaders and the chilling stories of killers, each chapter reveals the complex relationships between health, power, and infamy. Explore the captivating stories of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, and ...

The Healing Cell is an easy to follow, carefully researched, and clear-eyed view of medicine many decades in the making that is now paying off with treatments that repair damaged hearts, restore sight, kill cancer, cure diabetes, heal burns, and stop the march of such degenerative diseases. The emotionally and intellectually stimulating stories throughout the audiobook dramatically illustrate that stem cell therapies can change the way we live our lives after being afflicted by a disease or trauma.

Making rounds to homes one wet spring morning, veterinarian Dr. Kate Turner rescues a family's hamster from a vacuum cleaner then visits an estate whose owners breed champion Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Instead of sharing traditional tea with the couple, she confronts a bloody scene of bodies and 27 blue-ribbon dogs running wild. Police initially suspect a murder-suicide, but when Dr. Kate proves the famous best-in-show champion is missing, a darker reality intrudes.

Bradwel reminds us that the centenary of this apparent "wonder drug" should be no cause for celebration. Insulin often remains inaccessible to those who need it most: elusive prescriptions, uneven availability and sky-high prices result in rationing and desperate do-it-yourself research and development. In the face of bootstraps rhetoric and "Pharma Bro" capitalists, patients across the world are left to fend for themselves. There is a long way to go in the twenty-first century until insulin truly fulfills the extraordinary promises made by its discovery.

From insulin comas and lobotomy to incarceration and exile, Walter Brown chronicles the troubling history of the diagnosis and (often ineffective) treatment of bipolar disorder through the centuries, before the publication of a groundbreaking research paper in 1949. Cade's "Lithium Salts in the Treatment of Psychotic Excitement" described, for the first time, lithium's astonishing efficacy at both treating and preventing the recurrence of manic-depressive episodes, and would eventually transform the lives of patients, pharmaceutical researchers, and practicing physicians worldwide.

Dr. John Sullivan is the medical director of the Philadelphia General Hospital’s Alzheimer’s unit. He’s also a member of the West Philadelphia Historical Society, spearheading an effort to document as much information as possible regarding the hospital’s Franklin Wing, an abandoned section of the medical complex set to be razed. During his research, Dr. Sullivan acquaints himself with Dr. Zachary Schmidt, an eccentric and at times controversial physician who worked in the Franklin Wing until his mysterious disappearance on July 4th, 1976. There, in Dr. Schmidt’s former office, ...

After the tragic loss of their young son to a rare genetic disorder, John and Naomi discover they both carry a rogue gene. Having another child by conventional means is too much risk to bear. When they find geneticist Dr. Leo Dettore, it seems like the answer to their prayers. Every aspect of the child can be chosen and manufactured, from height and eye color to intelligence and sporting prowess. But realizing the danger too late, Naomi is already pregnant when they understand the nightmare world they are entering.

"Action thrillers are a fun genre as they're often page-turners, and The Forgotten Alphabet is definitely that. It's the 17th book in The Blackwell Files series, but it's the first one for me. Steven F. Freeman is such a talented author that he skillfully mentions critical parts of previous novels so the reader new to the series is not left behind. I loved every second of this book; the events are plausible, the flawed characters are all relatable, and the revelation of the mastermind shocked me. There's nothing to fault in this story—it's heart-racingly brilliant. I'm already a new fan ...

This book covers the history of 12 important diseases and addresses public health responses and societal upheavals.

Following the trail of an unexpected family connection, acclaimed journalist Pam Fessler has unearthed the lost world of the patients, nurses, doctors, and researchers at Carville who struggled for over a century to eradicate Hansen's disease, the modern name for leprosy. Amid widespread public anxiety about foreign contamination and contagion, patients were deprived of basic rights - denied the right to vote, restricted from leaving Carville, and often forbidden from contact with their own parents or children.

A family doctor with limited surgical experience, Dr. Dave Hnida volunteered for two tours of duty in Iraq - first as a battalion surgeon with a combat unit and then as trauma chief at the busiest Combat Support Hospital (CSH) during the Surge. Like a modern-day M*A*S*H, Dr. Hnida and his team conducted surgery under terrible conditions in a series of tents connected to the occasional run-down building.

In 1959, a Cincinnati pharmaceutical firm, the William S. Merrell Company, quietly began distributing samples of an exciting new wonder drug already popular around the world. Touted as a sedative without risks, thalidomide was handed out freely, under the guise of clinical trials, by doctors who believed approval by the Food and Drug Administration was imminent. But in 1960, when the application for thalidomide landed on the desk of FDA medical reviewer Frances Kelsey, she quickly grew suspicious.

This gripping book traces the evolution of brainwashing from its beginnings in torture and religious conversion into the age of neuroscience and social media. When Pavlov introduced scientific approaches, his research was enthusiastically supported by Lenin and Stalin, setting the stage for major breakthroughs in tools for social, political, and religious control.