"On Second Thought" and Other Essays in the History of Medicine and Science

Historian Owsei Temkin has argued passionately for the necessity of chronicling and analyzing the history of medicine. The essays presented here span his career, bringing together new pieces and many that were previously unavailable outside the journals in which they were originally published.

Other essays reflect on the history of therapy and nutrition, including drug therapy, and comment on the lessons ancient medicine can teach modern medicine. Dr. Temkin also writes on topics in the history of science, including the Age of Copernicus, as well as Gall and the phrenological movement. The final essay in the book brings the volume full circle, reproducing Dr. Temkin's obituary for Edelstein-included, he writes, to atone for his own more recent distancing from Edelstein's views.

Contents:

Preface and Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: On Second Thought
PART I: Ethics in Medicine
Chapter 2: What Does the Hippocratic Oath Say?
Chapter 3: The Idea of Respect for Life in the History of Medicine
Chapter 4: Some Moral Implications of the Concept of Disease
PART II: The History of Science
Chapter 5: Science and Society in the Age of Copernicus
Chapter 6: Gall and Phrenological Movement
Chapter 7: Historical Reflections on the Scientist's Virtue
PART III: The History of Therapy and Nutrition
Chapter 8: Historical Aspects of Drug Therapy
Chapter 9: Galenicals and Galenism in the History of Medicine
Chapter 10: Nutrition from Classical Antiquity to the Baroque
Chapter 11: Comments on the German Edition of Rush's Account of the Yellow Fever
PART IV: A Miscellany
Chapter 12: History and Prophecy: Meditations in a Medical Library
Chapter 13: On the Reading of Medical Classics
Chapter 14: The Study of the History of Medicine
Chapter 15: Wunderlich versus Haeser: A Controversy over Medical History (with C. Lilian Temkin)
Chapter 16: In Memory of Ludwig Edelstein
Index