The Healers: A History of Medicine in Scotland Book

Scotland's unique contribution to the advancement of medical science and practice has been widely recognized since the earliest times. During the eighteenth century, the first broadly-based education for physicians and surgeons was established in Scotland and graduates came to dominate medical practice and teaching throughout Britain, the New World, the Colonies, and Russia. Medicine in Scotland began with the folk healers of the Dark Ages, who used charms, herbs, and healing wells to cure the sick. The advent of more scientific methods resulted in the great achievements of figures like Joseph Lister, David Livingstone, and James Young Simpson, who transformed health care, not just in Scotland, but worldwide. In this new edition of The Healers, David Hamilton provides a fascinating alternative history of Scotland: a history of leprosy and plagues, cholera and typhoid, anatomy and bodysnatching, and of surgery before anesthesia, which had to be performed in a matter of minutes to save the patient's suffering.Read More