Synopsis
This new book combines mystery stories with popular history and medical case studies to offer readers a fascinating and entertaining experience! Post Mortem examines the controversial lives and deaths of 12 famous men and women, including Alexander the Great, King Herod, Joan of Arc, Mozart, Beethoven, and Edgar Allan Poe. It traces 3,500 years of the medical history, describes the characteristics of the illnesses in question, and brings to life the medical history, social history, family history, and physical examination of the famous victims. Then this book sifts through the medical evidence, testing a wide range of diagnostic theories against the known facts and today's best scientific research, to arrive at the diagnosis most consistent with the illness described in the historic record.
Doody Review Services
Reviewer:Suzanne M Shultz, MA(York Hospital)
Description:The clinicopathological conference (CPC) is a problem-based learning experience. A physician-expert is provided with the details of a difficult case and, after sifting through the evidence, the expert and the audience offer a learned interpretation of the facts and posit a diagnostic solution. This book is a collection of historical CPCs spanning time and space from ancient Egypt to 20th century Alabama.
Purpose:The author's purpose is to present the medical cases of 12 famous individuals about whom there are ambiguous historical interpretations of their last illness and death. A host of experts (acknowledged in the preface) provide significant details of the patient's history so that the most accurate medical history possible can be constructed, thus rendering a fact-based retrospective diagnosis.
Audience:This book crosses many disciplines and has wide appeal. It is written with enough medical detail to be of interest to medical professionals, yet simply enough to appeal to general readers. It has sufficient detail to engage a clinician and enough biographical information to delight a historian, with enough twists to satisfy a mystery enthusiast.
Features:Arranged in 12 chapters headed by very creative, yet ultimately quite descriptive titles, this book features medical case histories of famous persons whose illness and death have been shadowed in ambiguity. Each chapter contains a clinical summary of the patient's illness, relevant past medical history, family and social history, and description of the physical examination or manifestation of the puzzling case. Photographs, portraits, drawings, maps, timelines, and even a copy of a death certificate add to the patient's portrayal. Copious references and end notes attest to the excellent historic research from which today's clinicians draw their conclusions.
Assessment:The author says, "Post Mortem does not close the book on questions surrounding the twelve medical mysteries considered. Rather, it opens the book at a new page, based on the most comprehensive and objective medical histories compiled to date." Medical journal literature occasionally contains a single paper on the illness and death of famous individuals, but rarely does a compilation of well written cases such as this surface. This is a gem!