Their lives changed history. Their deaths were mysteries, until now! Post-Mortem: Solving History's Great Medical Mysteries by Philip A. Mackowiak, MD, FACP, examines the controversial lives and deaths of 12 famous men and women. Post-Mortem answers vexing questions such as: Was Alexander the Great a victim of West Nile virus? What caused the gruesome final illness of King Herod? Was Joan of Arc mentally ill during her heresy trial? Could syphillis have made Beethoven deaf? Did Edgar Allan Poe drink himself to death? This new book also investigates the mysterious deaths of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten, the Greek statesman and general Pericles, the Roman Emperor Claudius, Christopher Columbus, Mozart, Florence Nightingale, and Booker T. Washington. Post-Mortem traces 3,500 years of medical history from the perspective of what contemporary physicians thought about the diseases of their renowned patients and how they might have treated them. It follows the case history format of today's clinical pathologic conferences, describing the characteristics of the illnesses in question, and bringing to life the medical history, social history, family history, and physical examination of their famous victims. Post-Mortem then 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.

Patients as Art explores the capacity of art to provide a unique perspective on the history of humankind. Featuring over 160 full-color works of art, this book offers a pictorial review of medical history stretching from Paleolithic times to the present, reflecting the ideals and sensibilities of the times in which they were created, and communicating formal, spiritual, and scientific values. Dr. Mackowiak reveals what these works have to say about the status of the "art of medicine" in the past and its relationship to the medicine of today.

Mackowiak traces the history of medicine through the illnesses of some of the most influential figures of the past. The diseases suffered by these figures had profound effects on their lives and their legacies.

One of Washington Independent Review of Books' 50 Favorite Books of 2018 • A Buzzfeed Best Book of 2018 "Morbidly witty." —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times "A heady mix of erudite history and delicious gossip." —Aja Raden, author of Stoned Hugely entertaining, a work of pop history that traces the use of poison as a political—and cosmetic—tool in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family’s spoons, tried on their underpants and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions. Women wore makeup made with mercury and lead. Men rubbed turds on their bald spots. Physicians prescribed mercury enemas, arsenic skin cream, drinks of lead filings, and potions of human fat and skull, fresh from the executioner. The most gorgeous palaces were little better than filthy latrines. Gazing at gorgeous portraits of centuries past, we don’t see what lies beneath the royal robes and the stench of unwashed bodies; the lice feasting on private parts; and worms nesting in the intestines. In The Royal Art of Poison, Eleanor Herman combines her unique access to royal archives with cutting-edge forensic discoveries to tell the true story of Europe’s glittering palaces: one of medical bafflement, poisonous cosmetics, ever-present excrement, festering natural illness, and, sometimes, murder.

On August 1, 1966, the United States and the rest of the world witnessed a mass shooting at the University of Texas at Austin that is still considered one of the most shocking and impactful mass murders in that country’s recent history. Charles Joseph Whitman was a twenty-five-year-old married student and ex-Marine who truly went “ballistic” on that day. Sniping from the domineering UT Tower he killed or wounded more than forty victims before being shot and killed by police. As a former Marine and excellent marksman, Whitman had extensive experience with firearms but had no history of criminal activity or mental illness. The shooting spree, therefore, left many scrambling for answers. A clue emerged from Whitman’s suicide note. In it, he said that he knew something was wrong with himself and requested that an autopsy be performed after his death. A malignant tumour was found deep in his brain, which ignited a fierce debate amongst medical experts about its role in Whitman’s final violent actions. Cause of Death: Ballistic Trauma seeks to settle this debate by explaining the mechanisms of how the tumour was instrumental in influencing Whitman’s behaviour. The book explores how obstructive hydrocephalus and temporal lobe seizures may have led to the destructive events on that fateful day. Written by retired medical oncologist, Dr. Scott Young, who spent more than twenty years caring for patients with brain tumours, this book explores the neuroscience behind this mass murder. Drawing upon problem-solving techniques used in forensics, and supported with extensive references and images, Young puts forth an argument that Charles Whitman was probably not legally responsible for his actions. This is his first book.

In Medicating Race, Anne Pollock traces the intersecting discourses of race, pharmaceuticals, and heart disease in the United States over the past century, from the founding of cardiology through the FDA's approval of BiDil, the first drug sanctioned for use in a specific race. She examines wide-ranging aspects of the dynamic interplay of race and heart disease: articulations, among the founders of American cardiology, of heart disease as a modern, and therefore white, illness; constructions of "normal" populations in epidemiological research, including the influential Framingham Heart Study; debates about the distinctiveness African American hypertension, which turn on disparate yet intersecting arguments about genetic legacies of slavery and the comparative efficacy of generic drugs; and physician advocacy for the urgent needs of black patients on professional, scientific, and social justice grounds. Ultimately, Pollock insists that those grappling with the meaning of racialized medical technologies must consider not only the troubled history of race and biomedicine but also its fraught yet vital present. Medical treatment should be seen as a site of, rather than an alternative to, political and social contestation. The aim of scholarly analysis should not be to settle matters of race and genetics, but to hold medicine more broadly accountable to truth and justice.