The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (The Norton History of Science)

(‘a night with Venus, a lifetime with mercury’, people quipped).

Aristotle was the first who systematically used dissection findings (animal not human) as a grounding for his biomedical theories.

The guillotine, that high-tech tool of the Jacobin Terror, was ironically the invention of a progressive Paris physician, Dr Joseph Guillotin

Broken bones were treated with fat from the ñandú, an ostrich-like bird, and llama kidney juice was dropped into aching ears.

The heart’s heat dilated the lungs, fresh air rushed in, cooled the blood, and, warmed by the blood’s heat, was then expired.

(1738–1814), whose praise of its humanity (it was fast and foolproof) illustrates the Revolution’s chilling blend of idealism and inhumanity.

the mind was influenced by the body, the doctor had a part to play in teaching virtue.

The doctor should therefore observe sickness, attending the patient and identifying symptom clusters and their rhythms.

Whereas Plato distrusted sense experience, his pupil launched a programme of empirical investigation into the natural world – into zoology, botany and meteorology.