Review of "Images of Healing," edited by Ann Novotny & Carter Smith

 Review of

Images of Healing, edited by Ann Novotny & Carter Smith ISBN 0025908200

Five out of five stars

Visual tutorial on the history of medical practice

 The advancement in the effectiveness of medicine has mirrored and benefited by the advance of scientific understanding. This book is a illustrated history of how medicine was practiced in the last three centuries. For each decade, there is a timeline of significant events, such as the establishment of the various medical organizations.

 There are images of some of the most prominent people in the advancement of medicine as well as what were routine events of the times. For example, there are formal portraits of people such as Joseph Lister and Walter Reed. Each image has a brief description of the relevance of what appears in the image.

 Some of the routine events are patients being treated, patients being loaded in an ambulance and the dispensation of medications at a pharmacy. Following the timeline, the reader learns how the practice of medicine has been changed by the introduction of new techniques. The practices of cleanliness and anesthesia being used while surgery is performed are practices that were introduced relatively recently. Some advertisements for patent medicines are also included to perform some dark comic relief.

 While of necessity lacking in depth, this is a book that will educate and entertain people interested in how the practice of medicine has changed over the past three centuries.