The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity

‘This book is so stimulating and thought-provoking that, frankly, by the time I’d finished it I was in such a brain-overloaded anxiety state that I had to resort to one of modern medicine’s great innovations – a Valium pill.’

VAL HENNESSY, Daily Mail

‘Excellent’

Evening Standard, Christmas Books

‘To combine enormous knowledge and a delightful style and a highly idiosyncratic point of view is Roy Porter’s special gift, and it makes his new book alive and fascinating and provocative on every page.’

OLIVER SACKS

‘Sprawlingly compendious, encyclopaedically detailed and utterly free from any sort of triumphalist condescension about present achievement and past superstition… Every clinician, every aspirant clinician, every patient should read this wise book.’

BRIAN MORTON, Scotland on Sunday

‘Mr Porter, a formidably learned man, seems in this history to have omitted no discovery and no medical scientist of any importance… this account is completely without the cynicism which disfigures so much recently written medical history.’

Economist

‘Only the unique artistry or Roy Porter could have created this panoramic and perfectly magnificent intellectual history of medicine. It makes no difference whether one reads it for its wisdom, insight, inimitable perspective, or simply for its plenitude of information – this is the book that delivers it all, plus the sheer joy of hearing the distinct voice of one of today’s most fascinating commentators on the development of the ancient art of healing.’

SHERWIN B. NULAND

‘Intelligent and highly readable’

AMANDA FOREMAN, Independent

‘Intelligent analysis… Porter stresses at the beginning and reiterates powerfully throughout his captivating text, the authority and legitimacy of scientific medicine in Western society has lain only in small measure in its ability to cure the sick… interesting and provocative.’

LARA MARKS, History Today

‘Everything he writes is highly readable and his erudition is formidable.’

ANTHONY DANIELS, Sunday Telegraph

‘The solid virtues of The Greatest Benefit include clarity, calm and expertise in the art of the compressed anecdote: as in this sentence which concludes the career of the laughing gas pioneer: ‘Wells lost medical support, grew depressed, became addicted to chloroform, and after arrest in New York for hurling sulphuric acid at two prostitutes, committed suicide in jail’. The quotes are often very funny or very sad.’

ERIC CHRISTIANSEN, Spectator

‘Interesting… abounding in titbits of curious information.’

WILLIAM H. McNEILL, TLS

‘This huge book is an amazing achievement’

Irish Independent

‘A hugely enjoyable exploration of medicine and history. From hunter-gatherer to heart transplant, a matrix of ideas and events is woven, seamlessly incorporating medicine, philosophy, science and history. A seductive spell is cast… the prose flows effortlessly, the material well-organised and anecdotally fascinating… A great read.’

ALAN MUNRO, British Journal of General Practice

‘Wonderful… A powerful overview’

British Medical Journal

‘In this excellent book, Porter combines the presentation of full details concerning the science, art and practice of medicine through the ages with a refreshingly critical approach… readable and accessible to a wide audience, outshining other more traditional histories of medicine… truly a major achievement.’

International History of Nursing Journal

DEDICATION (#u000707b0-8f1a-5843-92cd-158ca5bc88d2)

TO

Mikuláš Teich,

true friend and scholar

Sick – Sick – Sick … O Sick – Sick – Spew

DAVID GARRICK, in a letter

I’m sick of gruel, and the dietetics,

I’m sick of pills, and sicker of emetics,

I’m sick of pulses, tardiness or quickness,

I’m sick of blood, its thinness or its thickness, –

In short, within a word, I’m sick of sickness!

THOMAS HOOD, ‘Fragment’, c. 1844

They are shallow animals, having always employed their minds about Body and Gut, they imagine that in the whole system of things there is nothing but Gut and Body.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, on doctors (1796)

CONTENTS

COVER (#u6fa374a3-52aa-5e84-81ac-187b805f0071)

TITLE PAGE (#ud29b370b-3387-56f2-87e0-14593496e575)

COPYRIGHT

PRAISE

DEDICATION (#u5f105158-00ac-5468-b0c6-04bdd1bfc55b)