A renowned diagnostician shares stories of his patients and explores the importance of the human factor in medicine. In The Art of Medicine, Toronto Western Hospital’s internist Dr. Herbert Ho Ping Kong draws on his vast dossier of personal cases and five decades as a clinician to examine the core principles of a patient-centered approach to diagnosis and treatment. While HPK, as he is fondly known, recognizes and applauds the many invaluable innovations in medical technology, he makes the point that as disease and its management grow increasingly complex, physicians must learn to develop an arsenal of more basic skills, actively using the arts of seeing, hearing, palpation, empathy, and advocacy to provide a more humane and holistic form of care. Aimed at medical practitioners, aspiring doctors, or anyone interested in health and medicine, this book also contains interviews with more than a dozen of HPK’s patients, as well as short essays that explore the thinking of his professional colleagues on the art of medicine.

Presents over 2,000 years of medical illustrations, including paintings, artifacts, drawings, prints, and extracts from manuscripts and manuals.

Diseases and injuries were major concerns for ancient Egyptians. This book, featuring some sixty-four objects from the Metropolitan Museum, discusses how both practical and magical medicine informed Egyptian art and for the first time reproduces and translates treatments described in the spectacular Edwin Smith Papyrus.

Fully illustrated with hundreds of artworks, this guide explores depictions of illness and healing in Western art.

Employing the logical tools of contemporary analytic philosophy, this book places the pseudo-Hippocratic treatise On the Art of Medicine in its proper philosophical, rhetorical, and medical contexts through a new translation and commentary on the Greek text.

The ancient Greeks used the term catharsis for the cleansing of both the body by medicine and the soul by art. In this inspiring book, internationally renowned cardiologist Andrzej Szczeklik draws deeply on our humanistic heritage to describe the artistry and the mystery of being a doctor. Moving between examples ancient and contemporary, mythological and scientific, Catharsis explores how medicine and art share common roots and pose common challenges. The process of diagnosis, for instance, belongs to a world of magic and metaphor; the physician must embrace it like a poem or painting, with particular alertness and keen receptivity. Speculation on ways to slow aging through genetics, meanwhile, draws directly on the dream of immortality that artists and poets have nourished through the ages. And the concept of catharsis itself has made its way from the writings of Aristotle to today's growing interest in the benefits of music to health, especially in newborns. As Szczeklik explores such subjects as the mysteries of the heart rhythm, the secret history of pain relief, the enigmatic logic of epidemics, near-death or out-of-body experiences, and many more, he skillfully weaves together classical literature, the history of medicine, and moving anecdotes from his own clinical experiences. The result is a life-affirming book that will enrich the healing work of patients and doctors alike and make an invaluable contribution to our still-expanding vision of the art of medicine.

"Although physicians make use of science, this book argues that medicine is not itself a science, but rather an interpretive practice that relies heavily on clinical reasoning." "In How Doctors Think, Kathryn Montgomery contends that assuming medicine is strictly a science can have adverse effects. She suggests these can be significantly reduced by recognizing the vital role of clinical judgment."--BOOK JACKET.

Herophilus, a contemporary of Euclid, practiced medicine in Alexandria in the third century B.C., and seems to have been the first Western scientist to dissect the human body. He made especially impressive contributions to many branches of anatomy. Von Staden assembles the fragmentary evidence concerning one of the more important scientists of ancient Greece.

Mapping the body - Medicine in our lives - Understanding illness and developing cures - Treating with surgery and healing wounds - Mind and mental illness - Staying well.

Lavishly illustrated and beautifully presented 53 colour illustrations of art Marvel at the A4 size pictures in a hardback volume Read the stories behind them Alan and Marcia Emery present a superb collection of over fifty pieces of art, reflecting the physician's role in society and the relationship between doctor and patient. Medicine and Art contains an international selection of artworks, tracing both the history of art and the development of medicine from the Ancient Greeks to the present day, illustrating changing perceptions and applications of medicine, through varied styles and artistic media. Each work of art is accompanied by a short essay describing the history of the artist and the subject of the artwork. The full colour illustrations and detailed Appendix of further artworks depicting specific medical conditions make this book a unique treasure trove of information for all who share the authors' love of art, history and medicine. This intriguing book evolved from a series of articles written and researched by Alan Emery about art and medicine in Clinical Medicine, the journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London. In addition to his life-long love of art, Professor Alan EH Emery has written over twenty books and 300 scientific articles during his long career in medical genetics. Marcia LH Emery shares her husband's love of art and history. She qualified in psychology in the UK and later obtained qualifications in library science at Case Western Reserve University, USA.