Langstaff: A Nineteenth-Century Medical Life
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Average customer review:Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2399182 in Books
- Published on: 1993-10-29
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 383 pages
Customer Reviews
Medicine + history = thoughtful entertainment
I really enjoyed this volume, but you won't if you're not fond of the academic history stlye. There are charts, and frequently the text is a detailed discussion of the charts, but if you can work through/skip over those parts this is a worthwhile read.
Through one non-urban, but not-exactly-rural doctor's life Duffin gets at the development of medicine and thoughts about disease in a "normal" community. You get to see a doctor get educated, to watch cutting-edge science trickle down to the local level, and to see what keeps a small-town doctor financially afloat when medical bills weren't as weighty as they are today.
What you won't get is intimately involved with the good doctor Langstaff. This isn't the volume for character psychology--it's about medicine, education, and science.