The Surgeon The Midwife The Quack

<B>Discover the remarkable birth of modern medicine... and how <I>not </I>to die in the Renaissance</B> <BR><B>'An entertaining history of medicine… Skuse brings a deep familiarity with the contemporary sources and a dry wit.' Dan Jones, <I>The Sunday Times</I></B><BR> <BR><B>'A richly researched and atmospheric history.' <I>Wall Street Journal</I></B><BR> <BR>The cliched view medicine in the Renaissance world is dreadful: gore-splattered hacksaws, arsenic concoctions, the four humours and all those leeches…<BR> <BR>Reality, however, proves somewhat different.<BR> <BR>In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a medical revolution was afoot. Physicians’ education was being formalised. Surgeons were documenting the intricacies of the human body with ever-greater skill. And, as European powers expanded into the New World, novel medicines and treatments were being discovered.<BR> <BR>Alanna Skuse ventures into the bustling medical marketplace of Renaissance England – a world of travelling surgeons, prosthetics craftsmen, faith healers and snake oil merchants.<BR> <ul> <li>Discover domestic healers like <B>Elizabeth Freke</B>, a doyenne of folk remedies, always ready to dole out tonics and elixirs to her ailing neighbours.</li> <li>Browse the shelves of the early modern apothecary with <B>Nicholas Culpeper </B>as he lays the groundwork for the modern pharmacy.</li> <li>Meet the expert midwife <B>Jane Sharp</B>, successful author and pioneer of women's health.</li> <li>Join the intrepid plague doctor <B>George Thomson</B> as he braves London's Great Plague.</li> </ul> <BR><BR>Humane and entrancing, <I>The Surgeon, The Midwife, The Quack</I> reveals the people and stories behind a scientific revolution.<BR> <BR><B>'Fascinating.' <I>Daily Mail</I></B><BR> <BR><B>'Meticulously researched and deliciously detailed.' Victoria Shepherd, author of <I>A History of Delusions</I></B>