Blood

Blood, Hemophilia, and Related Topics

• Blood On Their Hands : How Greedy Companies, Inept Bureaucracy, And Bad Science Killed Thousands Of Hemophiliacs by Eric Weinberg (2017)
  • Blood on Their Hands is an inspiring, firsthand account of the legal battles fought on behalf of hemophiliacs who were unwittingly infected with tainted blood. As part of the team behind the key class action litigation filed by the infected, young New Jersey lawyer Eric Weinberg was faced with a daunting task: to prove the negligence of a powerful, well-connected global industry worth billions. Weinberg and journalist Donna Shaw tell the dramatic story of how idealistic attorneys and their heroic, mortally-ill clients fought to achieve justice and prevent further infections.
• Don't Eat This If You're Taking That : The Hidden Risks Of Mixing Food And Medicine by Madelyn H. Fernstrom (2017)
  • We all believe a diet rich in colorful fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, and low-fat dairy products is part of healthy eating--right? Not always. Dr. Fernstrom explains exactly what foods to avoid when and why. For instance: on warfarin? Avoid dark green veggies. With this concise, scientifically based guide, consumers can easily personalize their eating plan to work with, not against, their medications.
• Blood Thinner Pills : Your Guide To Using Them Safely (2015)
  • A 12-page brochure from the United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
• Bleeder: A Memoir by Shelby Smoak (2013)
  • When he turned 18 in his senior year of high school, Smoak's parents and doctors told him he had tested HIV-positive several years earlier, the result of a blood transfusion administered to treat his hemophilia. This remarkable first book from Smoak, an English teacher and writer, begins during his final year of high school in rural North Carolina.
• The Bleeding Disease : Hemophilia And The Unintended Consequences Of Medical Progress by Stephen Gregory Pemberton (2011)
  • The remarkable biomedical achievements of the past century are marred by trials, tribulations, and mistakes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the transformation of a disease that killed its victims in their teens, to one that now allows patients to lead normal lives and is on its way to a cure by gene therapy. Pemberton (history, Rutgers Univ.) recounts this phenomenon in the treatment of hemophilia. This is a thoughtful, intelligent, and informative contribution to the history of hemophilia and the shaping of safety policies in blood use. - Choice (review excerpt)
• Five Quarts : A Personal And Natural History Of Blood by Bill Hayes (2005)
  • Hemophobes beware: there are five quarts of blood in the human body, and Hayes (Sleep Demons: An Insomniac's Memoir) pours all of them into this book. Hayes ranges far beyond red and white blood cells, platelets and plasma, taking readers inside a modern blood bank and to the bedside of a woman with hemophilia; his keen perceptions show how the ancient view of blood as the essence of a person's soul still pervades our modern vocabulary and views on the vital fluid. With his strong writing and a unique approach, Hayes satisfyingly addresses this life force. - Publishers Weekly (review excerpt)
• Blood Saga : Hemophilia, AIDS, And The Survival Of A Community by Susan Resnik (1999)
  • The hemophilia community includes people from every socioeconomic and ethnic group, and Resnik's narrative and use of oral histories never lose touch with those affected by the disease. Scientific breakthroughs inevitably become intertwined with the [health care] industry and academic medical centers that govern the national health care system. And in that system, says Resnik, costs and safety are sometimes contending issues. She makes clear that the lessons learned in Blood Saga apply to all of us.

History of and Advances in Medical Science

• From Anesthesia To X-Rays: Innovations And Discoveries That Changed Medicine Forever by Christiane Nockels Fabbri (2017)
  • Easy to read and to use, this A-to-Z mini-encyclopedia covers the most important medical innovations of the last 200 years. An introductory essay is provided which explains how the list was chosen and discusses the importance of innovation in the medical field.
• The Butchering Art : Joseph Lister's Quest To Transform The Grisly World Of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris (2017)
  • British science writer Fitzharris slices into medical history with this excellent biography of Joseph Lister, the 19th-century "hero of surgery." Lister championed the destruction of microorganisms in surgical wounds, thus preventing deadly postoperative infections. This was a radical approach inspired by French microbiologist and chemist Louis Pasteur's discovery of bacteria. Lister, whose Quaker father introduced him to the wonders of the microscope, became an evangelist for the germ theory of disease and the sterilization of both surgical instruments and doctors' hands. The medical community resisted Lister's procedures, but his successful treatment of Queen Victoria boosted his reputation and techniques-winning converts first in Scotland, then America, and finally London.
• The Untold History Of Healing : Plant Lore And Medicinal Magic From The Stone Age To Present by Wolf-Dieter Storl (2017)
  • This absorbing history of medicine takes the reader on a sweeping journey from the Stone Age to modern times, showing that Western medicine has its origins not only in the academic tradition of doctors and pharmacists, but in the healing lore of Paleolithic hunters and gatherers, herding nomads, and the early sedentary farmers. Anthropologist and ethnobotanist Wolf D. Storl vividly describes the many ways that ancient peoples have used the plants in their immediate environment, along with handed-down knowledge and traditions, to treat the variety of ailments they encountered in daily life. (Originally published in German as Ur-Medizin by AT Verlag)