Quackery by Lydia Kang, MD and Nate Pedersen

I have a fascination for medical history and Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen, is a wacky look at the way medical practitioners -- going back thousands of years -- have attempted to treat illness, often poisoning, harming, or even killing patients in the process.

The first chapter, about such wondrous techniques as "purging" (from both ends) by way of various poisonings, is by far the most stomach turning. I'm glad to say that most of the remaining chapters (opiods, water treatment, mesmerism, bleeding, etc.) are an improvement, horrifying as they may be. Except maybe the one in which people were burned in one spot to stop pain in another. Ouch.

The authors insert a bit of the gallows humor medical practitioners are known for, throughout the book. If you've got medical professionals in your family or circle of friends, you know that's pretty common. I found the use of dark humor a tiny bit annoying, at first, even though I literally laughed out loud at least once. But, I became accustomed to the writing style and eventually it didn't faze me at all.

I found a few little tidbits particularly interesting, such as the information on leeches (still used in medicine, though more sparingly - eww) and the actual story of the first "snake oil" salesman from which we get the term that describes quack cures. But, I was particularly fascinated with the general impression I got about today's quackery. Yes, we still have quack cures popping up in our modern world. But, it's interesting to note that even some of today's fast fixes and medical advice have roots in fad "cures" of another century and that while most of what's mentioned in the book failed miserably, some real, functioning cures were merely poisonous at the wrong dosages and are effective, today.

The only problem I had with this book is that all of the image captions but one (not sure why there was one exception) were written in Latin. Update: At the time I wrote this, I had no way of finding out whether or not the captions in the final print copy were English or they'd left them those annoying Latin captions in place. Fortunately, a friend is reading Quackery and she said the final print version does have English captions beneath the photos and illustrations. Whew! Thanks, Michelle!

Highly recommended for history lovers with strong stomachs - You can't be faint of heart to read Quackery (well . . . maybe you can, but you'll need to take breaks), but it's very entertaining and definitely a book I'd recommend to those who like quirky history in general, medical history in particular, and gorgeous enough to make a great gift idea. I received an ARC from Workman Publishing and the ARC is entirely printed in black and white, but the final print version is, according to the publicity info, full color. Even in black and white the illustrations are stunning so I'm planning to seek out the full color version, if only to peek inside and see what it looks like.


©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Bringing Out the Dead by Joe Connelly - book and movie

"Frank, she's got chest pain."
"She's got everything," I said. "Ma'am, what does the pain feel like?"
"I don't know."
"Is it like a pressure?" Larry said. "Is it like an elephant sitting on your chest?"
"Yes," she groaned.
"Is it a fluttering pain," I said, "like a bird flying in your chest?"
"Yes."
"Or a burning pain, like eating lit matches?"
"Yessss," she cried.
"She's got the yeses," I said. "Not much you can do for that."

~p. 59

At night the walls went up and the gates came down and the fear chased everyone inside, except for those who spread it, those it caught, and those, like me, brought in to witness.

~p. 134

Bringing Out the Dead by Joe Connelly is a backlist book, published by Vintage in 1998. I've had it on my shelf for so long I don't remember where or when I acquired it; but, my recent paramedic reading binge had me thinking I should give it a go. And, wow, am I glad I did. As in any book that describes emergency medicine, there are a few graphic scenes that may turn a stomach or two, but Bringing Out the Dead is just . . . it's deep, man.

Frank Pierce's first three years as a paramedic were oddly magical, but now he's burned out. He's been a paramedic working in New York's Hell's Kitchen for a private ambulance service long enough that the ghosts of those he couldn't save follow him everywhere. A young asthmatic teenager named Rose is particularly tormenting Frank, who was unable to intubate her before it was too late. He calls her, "The girl I helped kill". And, a man who should have died but whose heart Frank restarted because he had no choice but to keep doing CPR until the doctor gave approval to stop haunts him. Burke's body is shutting down; he will never return to consciousness and Frank knows it, the doctors know it. But, the family doesn't understand, so every time the man's heart stops the doctors and nurses must resuscitate a man who is never really coming back.

Frank's wife has left him, his boss keeps promising to fire him but won't because the service is short-handed, and Frank is oddly mesmerized by Burke's daughter, Mary, although he knows the good news she desires will never come. What will happen to Frank?

I read a few reviews when I finished reading Bringing Out the Dead and I have to agree with the people who said it's less a book with a definitive plot than a "slice of life". The reader accompanies Frank, feels his pain, watches him treat his patients and sees his ghosts, observes as he drinks himself into oblivion and then, when Frank takes a risk for a patient whom most might think undeserving of life, observes the moment when Frank thinks he is going to die on the job and . . . well, has an epiphany, I guess you could say.

I love the fact that as the book progresses you realize that Frank's not just losing his mind and addicted to alcohol for the sake of killing the pain, he's also addicted to his job.

What I loved most about Bringing Out the Dead:

The dark humor, the theme about learning to live with your ghosts, the peek into the emotional aspect of a job that is stressful, worked mostly by people who are both adrenaline seekers and deeply caring individuals. That second quote, above, is so profound. Sometimes all they really can do is bear witness.

Highly recommended - This book absolutely would not let go of me. I finished it and went straight into a whopper of a slump. Beautifully written, deeply affecting, sometimes graphic and more than a little scary, Bringing Out the Dead is about burnout, addiction and learning to live with the things that haunt you (equally applicable to paramedics and the rest of us, thematically). You will come out of the reading feeling a little nervous about whether or not the people charged with keeping you alive are okay because pretty much all of the characters in Bringing Out the Dead are a little crazy. But, it will also make you think about life and death and where the medical establishment should draw the line when it comes to resuscitation.

Of course, I had to see the movie version of Bringing Out the Dead. I like Nicolas Cage; he's one of those actors who does crazy and depressed, hysterical and suicidal equally well. He was, in fact, excellent as Frank Pierce and I liked the movie. Since I'd read the book not long before I watched the movie, I recognized lines that were taken directly from the pages of Connelly's book and knew when things were altered.

I was disappointed with the ending of the movie. In the book, the final scene is metaphorical. It explains -- through something that can't possibly really happen -- that Frank has decided that in order to go on he must live with his ghosts rather than fight them. It's a stunning scene and it's not in the movie. The ending of the movie is okay; it's just not as meaningful. Still, I liked the movie and I'm glad I watched it. But, it's the book I'll return to. Even as I was reading Bringing Out the Dead, I was thinking about how much I'd like to reread it in the future.

Interesting side note: Joe Connelly had only one other book published. Bringing Out the Dead was a bestseller; Connelly's second book was a flop. In fact, I can't find any information about Connelly at all, beyond a Wikipedia entry that tells absolutely nothing about what's become of the author since the publication of his second book. I hope he's alive and happy and writing poetry on a beach, somewhere.

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Catch-up #1: Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck, A Survival Guide for Life by Grylls, Tomorrow We Die by Grady

I had such a fantastic reading month in September that my sidebar has been taunting me for ages. Yes, true, I am under no obligation to write about every book I read (I do skip a book if I feel like there's nothing to say and the book in question is from my personal library). But, the whole point of blogging is to keep a record of what I've read and my thoughts about each of those books so I'm going to do some catch-up posts. The following were either recently purchased or on my home shelves. I absolutely loved and highly recommend all three.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - I just found out I'm not the only person in America who missed out on reading and discussing Of Mice and Men in school, yesterday! Whew! Good to know.

Short version of the storyline, lacking spoilers: Two friends travel around working odd jobs together. Lennie is intellectually challenged; George watches out for his friend. When they end up in trouble -- which invariably happens because Lennie has difficulty understanding boundaries and doesn't know his own strength -- George takes charge of their escape. When Lennie does something so horrific their lives are both put in danger, what will George do?

I love Steinbeck. For such a small book, Of Mice and Men certainly packs a wallop. Definitely one of my favorite reads of the year. I wish I'd read it in a group setting. When I closed the book, I was dying to discuss the moral dilemma.

I love Bear Grylls and have been thinking, "I need to read one of his books" for quite a while. So, when I indulged in some stress shopping in September I went in search of a book by Grylls. Any title would do -- and since I was looking at a discount website I took what was available.

A Survival Guide for Life by Bear Grylls is about achieving your goals, with focus on paying attention to what makes you happy, maintaining enthusiasm, dealing with adversity, working on strength of character -- really great advice. The author refers to the book as "self help" within its text. I'm not generally a fan of self-help because I've found the majority of such books are not particularly helpful or their effects are short-lived. However, I do love books on positive thinking and have several favorites that I periodically reread when I need an upper.

A Survival Guide for Life definitely falls into the "uppers worth rereading" category. Although much of Grylls' advice is common sense or already in practice here, there is still plenty to think about and his infectious can-do attitude just can't be beat. I haven't yet talked my youngest into reading the book because he's been reading business books recommended by his father while working on his second degree but I think there are aspects to A Survival Guide for Life that are particularly relevant to young people on the verge of entering the work force so I hope he'll find the time to read the book soon. In the meantime, I may even give it a second go. A Survival Guide for Life is definitely a book I plan to reread repeatedly. And, I would especially recommend it for those who need a little mental boost. It would also make a fabulous graduation gift. Bear Grylls is truly an inspiration.

I've already talked about Tomorrow We Die by Shawn Grady a bit, here, but without describing the storyline.

Jonathan Trestle is a paramedic working for a private ambulance service. When he's called to a cardiac arrest, he manages to revive the patient, an unkempt man who may have overdosed. Before the patient slips back into unconsciousness, he hands Jonathan a note and tells him to give it to Martin. Of course, Jonathan has no idea who Martin is.

There is so much going on in this book that I realize now why I didn't post a synopsis, before. First, there's the patient with the note. Jonathan tracks down the patient and goes in search of Martin. There's an old girlfriend Jonathan keeps running into; they have a lot of baggage but the mutual attraction is still there. His alcoholic dad is fading. Jonathan has flashbacks to his mother's death. And, when the ambulance company gets after Jonathan for not meeting the city's standard response time because there aren't enough ambulances to cover the quantity of calls coming in, he stumbles across a corporate cover-up that puts his life (and the lives of several other people) in danger.

I have a feeling there's more that I've forgotten but the bottom line is that Tomorrow We Die is action-packed, well paced and the pages absolutely flew. I loved this book. My only problem with it was that it could be a little too descriptive. But, that's something you just have to be prepared for when you're reading a book written by a paramedic. The things they see are not pretty. I'm currently reading Bringing Out the Dead by Joe Connelly (yet another novel written by a paramedic) and it is equally stomach-turning, at times, but I love this stuff. Tomorrow We Die was definitely the most exciting novel I've read by a paramedic, so far. We'll see how the next one goes.

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Paramédico by Benjamin Gilmour

Paramédico: Around the World by Ambulance by Benjamin Gilmour
Copyright 2012
The Friday Project (an imprint of HarperCollins)
Originally published 2011 in Australia by Pier 9 (an imprint of Murdoch Books Pty Ltd.)
Source: Purchased

Cynicism among paramedics in Australia is so entrenched that Pip James, a former lecturer at the ambulance education centre in Sydney, used to insist her students write themselves a letter immediately after employment. This letter would outline the students' motives for joining the job, the way they perceived the profession and a description of the paramedics they hoped to become. The letters were then sealed and only opened again once they had returned to the school after a year on the road. As expected, the students squirmed horribly when reading their earlier sentiments. But many also learnt how insidiously tainted they had become.

It's easier to avoid cynicism, however, when patients present with genuine and pressing needs, when the service is not abused. Ambulance workers in the West generally agree that the level of disgruntlement in their job is directly proportional to the number of time-wasters they attend. When customers call for a lift to the shops, for a drink of water, for a blanket when cold, it's no surprise. If customers reserved calling ambulances for serious injuries and acute illnesses only, frustration and cynicism among paramedics would probably decline accordingly. 

~p. 164

The purchase of Paramédico was one of those cases of "One book leads to another." First, I came across my old copy of The Paramedics and decided I wanted to read it, again, because I've been watching old reruns of the cult classic show Emergency!  Then, I happened across Rescue by Anita Shreve -- again, whilst unloading boxes of books and organizing my home library. I'm not even quite sure how I came across Paramédico, to be honest, but since I purchased it from an online bookstore I'm guessing that I just happened to be looking up something entirely different and thought, "Hmm, I wonder if there are any new titles about paramedics." It's an old obsession; I have quite a little collection of books about EMS and a handful of novels with paramedic heroes.

Paramédico is quite different from the other books I've read because it's not just about being a paramedic and what it's like; it's about the experiences of a paramedic who traveled around the world working with other paramedics, doctors, nurses and some lesser qualified medics while, at times, filming them. There's a film by the same name. I have yet to locate a DVD that will work in the U.S. but you can purchase Paramédico on demand at Vimeo, so I may give in and do that. I really would like to see the film.

The book is absolutely fascinating, as much (possibly more) from a cultural perspective as the stories of field medicine in action. After reading The Paramedics, I'd been wondering what emergency medical services are like in other countries and I could not have chosen a more fascinating peek into the differences in how ambulances are dispatched and staffed, what supplies are carried, what is expected of medics by patients in different countries. Expectation was something I had not thought about, actually, that in some places the expectation -- of pain relief or the lack of it, for example -- is completely different. Can you imagine an American accepting a vitamin shot or a valium injection for just about everything? Isn't it beyond fathoming that there's a country where the ambulances carry no drugs at all? Valium, vitamin shots, no medication, a ride on a floating ambulance that makes you queasy but lacks disposable vomit bags . . . those are options in other places.

One thing that seems to be a constant wherever you go is abuse of the system, something that baffles me because the last thing I can imagine anyone desiring is a ride in an ambulance or a visit to an emergency room, especially for no good reason. I'd have to be near death to end up in either (that's happened once -- I was in bad enough shape that I have almost no memory of it, which is fine by me).

Paramédico begins with an introduction and a chapter about the author's first posting in the Australian Outback. After you get to know the author's Australian background, he takes you on a journey around the world with stops in South Africa, England, the Philippines, Macedonia, Thailand, Pakistan, Iceland, Italy, the U.S. (Hawaii) and Mexico. His travels took place over quite a few years and it's been a few years since publication, so things may have changed in some of the countries he visited; Gilmour does make that perfectly clear. But, you still get a unique perspective on various cultures that likely have not altered much. I think that's what I loved most about the book. It had the feel of a travelogue but from a unique perspective, that of each country's emergency services.

The biggest problem most readers will probably have with Paramédico is that you need a strong stomach to read some of the medical scenes. I have no problem with that, possibly because of the stories my father used to tell about his time as a Navy Corpsman on a hospital ship. The reality is another thing entirely, I'm sure.

Highly recommended - A well-written peek into EMS in 11 different countries. Medical professionals of all kinds will appreciate the stories of situations and treatment but it's the cultural perspective that really makes Paramédico an excellent book; and, it's very well written. If you can read about messy medical situations without getting queasy, it's a book that I highly recommend.

One note: The author is not particularly complimentary to Americans. That didn't bother me. I think it's good to read about what people think of us in other countries and to get an outside viewpoint of where and how we (or the politicians who represent us) may be causing trouble for others.

Is this the last link in my latest round of chain-reading? Nope, I noticed a couple other books I'm pretty sure I haven't gotten around to reading during last week's work on the library (both novels with paramedic heroes, I think). So, I'll keep sliding in an EMS read, now and then. It will be hard to beat Paramédico. I hope Benjamin Gilmour will write more about his experiences, in the future.

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.