Amazing Medical Stories

By (author): George Burden, Dorothy Grant

The twenty true tales in Amazing Medical Stories give a rich and entertaining picture of the ways in which medical workers (both real and fake) have used the keys to the mysterious kingdom of life: health, disease, and physical anomaly, birth, death, and post-mortem diagnosis. The stories run the gamut from tragedy to hilarity, from satisfaction of curiosity to evocation of terrible pity. Amazing Medical Stories deals with quacks and charlatans, the giants Angus McAskill and Anna Swan, the first case of antisocial personality disorder, as well as wonderous inventions and achievements by physicians.

AUTHOR

George Burden

Dr. George Burden is a general practitioner in Elmsdale, Nova Scotia. His stories on medical history appear frequently in the Medical Post, and he is also a contributor to Reader’s Digest, Stitches Magazine of Medical Humour, the Halifax Sunday Herald, and the St. John’s Telegram.

AUTHOR

Dorothy Grant

Dorothy Grant worked as a registered nurse in Halifax and New York, and later turned to journalism. With consumer affairs as her beat, she became a Halifax radio and TV personality. In the 1990s, she did communications work for the Medical Society of Nova Scotia, and at the same time she published more than 60 articles in the Medical Post. Her byline is familiar to readers of Family Practice Magazine, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, and the Halifax Chronicle-Herald.

Reviews

Amazing Medical Stories explores medicine’s strange borderlands with twenty true tales of healers and frauds, inventors and quacks, heroism and desperation.

An American millionaire implants goat testicles in his patients to restore flagging manhood. An identity thief becomes a famous Royal Canadian Navy surgeon. A courageous black doctor performs the first successful heart operation. A clergyman stops a diphtheria epidemic, and Alexander Graham Bell develops life-saving inventions at his home in Cape Breton. From the brain tumour of Fortress Louisbourg’s would-be saviour to the valour of the medical examiner who managed the horrific aftermath of the Swissair Flight 111 crash, these tales are guaranteed to shock, amuse, and inspire.

In Amazing Medical Stories, George Burden and Dorothy Grant prove, once again, that truth is stranger than fiction.

“Interesting… ‘The Physicians on Titanic,’ ‘The Undertakers and the Titanic Disaster,’ and ’The Halifax Explosion: Taking Care of the Victims,’ these three compelling tales combined are reason enough to want to read this book.”
– The Titanic Historical Society

“Medical stories amaze, amuse.”
– The Chronicle Herald

Awards

There are no awards found for this book.

Reader Reviews

Details

Dimensions:

128 Pages
7.75in * 5.5in * 0.32in
190gr

Published:

April 08, 2003

Publisher:

Goose Lane Editions

ISBN:

9780864923479

9780864925503 – EPUB

Book Subjects:

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Medical

Featured In:

All Books

Language:

eng

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