Preserve your Love for Science
Preserve your Love for Science
$57.00
USDWilliam Alexander Hammond, M. D. (1828–1900), one of the most successful American physicians of the nineteenth century, was first recognized in the 1850s as a natural history collector and as an original investigator in physiological chemistry. Appointed surgeon general of the United States Army in 1862, he supervised a sweeping reorganization of the Medical Department along lines of centralization and efficiency. Some of his more controversial projects, however, provided Hammond's political enemies with the opportunity to engineer his court-martial and dismissal from the army in 1864. He then established himself in New York as an exclusive specialist in neurology, one of the first in the country. In this first full-length biography of a major nineteenth-century American medical personality, Bonnie Ellen Blustein shows how Hammond developed his specialty practice as a vehicle for pursuing broad scientific interests within the limits set by the solo-practitioner structure of the medicine of his day.
Reviews & endorsements
"...a zesty biography...." Choice
"This excellent book clearly portrays a complex and dynamic person whose multifaceted career illustrates medical practice in 19th-century America." Frank R. Freemon, JAMA
"...a meticulous and excellent account of Hammond's life and has well documented the many societal forces, in addition to Hammond's efforts, that contributed to the development of neurology....a fine resource and will be of great interest to neurologists and historians concerned with the evolution of the practice of neurology." Richard Satran, Journal of the History of Medicine
"...the passionate pursuit of science as an intellectual activity and the entrepreneurial deployment of science as a competitive tool in the marketplace have remained to a striking extent the subjects of separate narratives. Bonnie Blustein deftly shows in this biography of William Hammond (1828-1900) the complex ways these two historical stories might be intercalated....an important book for understanding the shifting place of science in late nineteenth-century medicine." John Harley Warner, ISIS
"...a meticulously documented and highly readable biography that stands as the definitive study." Pascal James Imperato, New York State Journal of Medicine
Product details
July 2002Paperback
9780521528436
304 pages
230 × 154 × 23 mm
0.491kg
Available
Table of Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Introduction
- 2. 'I can make any post interesting'
- 3. 'The first original physiologist in the United States'
- 4. 'The best friend the soldier has'
- 5. 'Foggy with embarrassments'
- 6. 'A New York medical man'
- 7. 'A laborious and skilful observer'
- 8. 'So great her science'
- 9. 'Systems of cures and wonderful remedies'
- 10. 'A positive mental science'
- 11. 'All men are insane'
- 12. 'I said that I would be back'
- 13. 'Very near being a great man'
- Notes
- Note on sources
- Bibliography of William Alexander Hammond, M. D.
- Index.
