Medicine and Oncology. An Illustrated history Volume 5 . The Enlightenment and The Nineteenth Century

In the 18th century, often referred to as the "century of revolutions", we witnessed an extraordinary development of science, which began with the formulation of Newton's principles which are still largely at the basis of our worldview today. The natural sciences were reorganised, with the proposal of zoological and botanical taxonomies, and medicine began to become more scientific with the formulation of great interpretative systems, the birth of a chemistry definitively separate from alchemy, the first research on electrical and physiological phenomena, the innovative interpretation of the nature of disease processes and the characterisation of many specific diseases. However, it was in the 19th century that medicine definitively evolved into science and technology with the invention of the stethoscope, the discovery of anaesthesia, antisepsis and asepsis, vaccines and serotherapy, with the microscopic analysis of tissues and the identification of the cell as the fundamental element of living matter. The interpretative paradigm of alterations in the human body changes and the therapeutic approach shifts with the introduction of chemotherapy and the improvement of surgical techniques. In the fifth volume of Medicine and Oncology, the history of the evolution of the events and concepts that led to the affirmation of modern medicine is also presented through the stories of men and women who, with self-sacrifice and determination, charted the paths to success. The style is the same: simple, flowing, and accessible to all those who are interested in the formation of modern ideas on health and disease. And as always the wonderful illustrations perfectly complement the text.