Howard Markel Boeken

The narrative explores the lives of Freud and Halsted as they navigated the duality of cocaine's promise and peril in the 1880s. Both men, pivotal figures in their fields, faced devastating personal battles with addiction that impacted their health, relationships, and professional legacies. Markel delves into the profound physical and emotional toll of their struggles while highlighting their remarkable contributions to psychoanalysis and modern surgery. This account sheds light on their intertwined stories, set against a backdrop of historical significance.

"A definitive history of the race to unravel DNA's structure, by one of our most prominent medical historians. Biologist James Watson and physicist Francis Crick's 1953 revelation about the double helix structure of DNA is the foundation of virtually every advance in our modern understanding of genetics and molecular biology. But how did Watson and Crick do it--and why were they the ones who succeeded? In truth, the discovery of DNA's structure is the story of a race among five scientists for advancement, fame, and immortality: Watson, Crick, Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins, and Linus Pauling. They were fascinating and brilliant, with strong personalities that often clashed. But it is Rosalind Franklin who becomes a focal point for Markel. The Secret of Life is a story of genius and perseverance, but also a saga of cronyism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and misconduct. Markel recounts the intense intellectual journey, and the fraught personal relationships, that resulted in the discovery of DNA"-- Provided by publisher

The ongoing battle against deadly microbes highlights the persistent presence of ancient diseases alongside emerging health threats. Vaccine shortages complicate the fight, while the resurgence of germ warfare poses a significant global risk. This exploration delves into the historical and contemporary challenges posed by infectious diseases, emphasizing the continuous need for vigilance and innovation in public health.

"John Harvey Kellogg was one of America's most beloved physicians; a best-selling author, lecturer, and health-magazine publisher; founder of the Battle Creek Sanitarium; and patron saint of the pursuit of wellness. His youngest brother, Will, was the founder of the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, which revolutionized the mass production of food and what we eat for breakfast. In The Kelloggs, Howard Markel tells the sweeping saga of these two extraordinary men, whose lifelong competition and enmity toward one another changed America's notion of health and wellness from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, and who helped change the course of American medicine, nutrition, wellness, and diet. The Kelloggs were of Puritan stock, a family that came to the shores of New England in the mid-seventeenth century, went west to the wooded Michigan frontier to start a farm that became one of the biggest in the county, and then renounced it all for the religious calling of Ellen Harmon White, a self-proclaimed prophetess, and James White, whose new Seventh-day Adventist theology was based on Christian principles and sound body, mind, and hygiene rules--Ellen called it "health reform." The Whites groomed the young John Kellogg for a central role in the Seventh-day Adventist Church and sent him to America's finest medical school, Bellevue Hospital Medical College. Kellogg's main medical focus--and America's number one malady: indigestion. Markel gives us the life and times of the Kellogg brothers of Battle Creek: Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and his world-famous Battle Creek Sanitarium medical center, spa, and grand hotel attracted thousands actively pursuing health and well-being. Among the guests: Mary Todd Lincoln, Amelia Earhart, Booker T. Washington, Johnny Weissmuller, Dale Carnegie, Sojourner Truth, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and George Bernard Shaw. And the presidents he advised: Taft, Harding, Hoover, and Roosevelt, with first lady Eleanor. The brothers Kellogg experimented on malt, wheat, and corn meal, and, tinkering with special ovens and toasting devices, came up with a ready-to-eat, easily digested cereal they called Corn Flakes. As Markel chronicles the Kelloggs' fascinating, Magnificent Ambersons-like ascent into the pantheon of American industrialists, we see the vast changes in American social mores that took shape in diet, health, medicine, philanthropy, and food manufacturing during seven decades--changing the lives of millions and helping to shape our industrial age."--Jacket

At a time of renewed anti-immigrant sentiment and newly emerging infectious diseases, Quarantine! provides a historical context for considering some of the significant problems that face American society today.

A lively account of how Darwin’s work on natural selection transformed science and society and an investigation into the mysterious illness that plagued its author