image courtesy Cliff PickoverThe Medical Book: From Witch Doctors to Robot Surgeons is Cliff Pickover's new book. Cliff is known for his excellent blog Reality Carnival which has been on my blogroll for ages.
In The Medical Book, Clifford Pickover explores 250 of the most intriguing medical milestones from 10,000 B.C. to modern times. Along with odd and perplexing marvels like prehistoric skull trepanation and using cocaine as a local anesthetic, you can also read about the Hippocratic Oath, biological weapons, human cloning, general anesthesia, face transplants, near-death experiences, the placebo effect, alternative medicine, and the role of war and violence in accelerating the pace of medical understanding.
