Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce
Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce Books
Product Description
Powerfully involving narrative and incisive detail, clarity and inherent drama: Blood offers in abundance the qualities that define the best well loved science writing. Here is the sweeping tale of a substance that has been feared, revered, mythologized, and used in key and medicine from earliest times–a substance that has become the focal top of a huge, secretive, and often perilous worldwide commerce.
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Blood was described by judges as “a gripping page-turner, a significant contribution to the history of medicine and technology and a cautionary tale. Meticulously reported and exhaustively documented.”
Amazon.com ReviewDon’t faint! Blood may be a highly charged substance, symbolic of our spirit and essential for life, but we can gain much from shiny on its power over us. Science journalist Douglas Starr has examined the history of blood’s medical uses, and his report is at once intellectually engaging and emotionally compelling. Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce covers the late 17th century to the bestow, detailing experiments with animal blood (one violent madman was briefly calmed by infused calf’s blood), the long ban on transfusions, direct artery-to-vein suture between donor and recipient, and today’s global blood-banking industry. It’s a fantastic tale that shows the long climb from fantastic risk and heroism to relative safety.
Our greatest stumble during this climb–the AIDS crisis of the 1980s–is the meat of the book. How may possibly it have happened? Why were so many people given contaminated blood products after clear warnings about the risks of infection? Starr is unafraid to name names and lay bare the political and financial decisions that condemned so many thousands of hemophiliacs and surgical patients to early deaths. Those who don’t learn from the past are bound to do again it; Starr aims to help us keep the blood off of our hands. –Rob Lightner
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Lots of words on the theme of blood. Pretty excellent. Never finished it, too long.
Rating: 4 / 5
Intriguing compilation of facts about how the human natural resource called BLOOD can be exploited like any other. From the discovery of the different components of blood (in which he bravely sheds a different light on the well loved urban legend of the death of African-American scientist Dr. Drew), to how greed and pride brought about the HIV tainted blood crisis, Starr weaves a very readable science tale.
Rating: 4 / 5
This is a very thorough, and painstakingly fascinating, book about blood. It might be hard to presume that one substance may possibly be the theme of a facsinating history, but it is just that. This book is nearly like a run of tales, one building upon the other, and it has ignited my interest in medical history generally. I wholeheartedly urge.
Rating: 5 / 5
I originally took this book out of my local library to do a research project for my final exam in History. Since the culmination of my research, I have rented this book three more times in to read it for my own enjoyment. The topic of blood is purely fascinating. Starr has brilliantly written a book that informs the reader of vital issues, as well as being entertaining and plotting provoking. The reader gets a profound understanding of the importance of blood that spans from the 17th century, though World Wars, and through current problems with AIDS in the world’s blood supply. I have never read a nonfiction book that has kept my attention as very as this one. This book is truly one that you’ll want to keep.
Rating: 5 / 5
Once I ongoing this book, I couldn’t place it down. The author tells the tale of blood in a lively, well-researched manner. His descriptions are riveting, sometimes alarming, but everlastingly informative and exciting. His tales about the players in this industry are so compelling that you reckon you know them firsthand. The latter parts of the book, about AIDs and the safety of the world’s blood suppy are disturbing yet teach us vital lessons about broadcast health. This book is destined to become a classic.
Rating: 5 / 5