The history of medicine is, in many ways, the history of humanity’s attempts to understand the biological causes of disease and to intervene when things go wrong. From ancient systems of healing based on observation, traditional knowledge and ideas such as the four humours, medicine gradually became more closely connected to anatomy, physiology and experimental science. The development of anatomical dissection, microscopy, germ theory and vaccination transformed our understanding of disease, while discoveries such as antibiotics, anaesthesia, antisepsis and modern surgery dramatically changed survival and life expectancy. During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, medicine has become increasingly molecular, with genetics, immunology, microbiology, molecular biology and genomics revealing mechanisms of disease at levels that would have been unimaginable to earlier physicians. For biologists, the history of medicine is particularly fascinating because it demonstrates how biological knowledge develops through observation, experimentation and sometimes considerable scientific disagreement. Medical discoveries have repeatedly depended on advances in basic biology: understanding microorganisms led to germ theory and antibiotics; knowledge of immune systems enabled vaccination and immunotherapies; advances in cell biology and genetics have transformed our understanding of cancer; and genomics is increasingly revealing why individuals differ in their susceptibility to disease and their responses to treatment. The relationship also works in the opposite direction, with medical problems providing important questions that drive biological research. Studying this history therefore helps biologists appreciate how apparently abstract discoveries about cells, organisms, genes and evolution can eventually have profound consequences for human health.
Learning about the history of medicine is also important because it provides a valuable perspective on how science works, and how it can sometimes go wrong. Earlier medical practices that now appear misguided were often based on the best explanations and evidence available at the time, reminding us that today’s scientific understanding is also provisional and continually developing. The history of medicine includes remarkable successes, but also ethical failures, ineffective treatments, exploitation and the misuse of scientific ideas. For biologists, these stories encourage critical thinking about evidence, uncertainty and scientific progress while demonstrating the importance of collaboration between different biological disciplines. Ultimately, medicine offers a compelling way of seeing biology in action: it connects the microscopic world of cells and pathogens with evolution, ecology, physiology and human society, making its history both scientifically illuminating and deeply relevant to modern biology. There are a number of parallels with human medicine and animal biology, it is for that reason that I have become extremely fascinated with it over the past 18 months or so. Therefore I would like to share the below ten books with you find them as interesting as I did.
Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine by Roy Porter (2003)
Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine provides a concise and highly readable history of Western medicine, tracing humanity’s long struggle to understand disease, relieve suffering and prolong life. Porter begins with the changing patterns of disease from prehistoric societies through the development of agriculture, cities and industrialisation, before examining the many different ways people have attempted to heal themselves. He explores the changing roles of doctors, from ancient healers, apothecaries and blood-letters to modern medical professionals, while introducing readers to influential figures such as Hippocrates, Galen, Vesalius and William Harvey. Rather than presenting medicine as a straightforward story of scientific progress, Porter shows how medical ideas have been shaped by the societies and cultures in which they developed.
A central theme of the book is the transformation of medicine from largely empirical and sometimes speculative practices into an increasingly scientific discipline. Porter examines how anatomical dissection and a better understanding of the human body challenged established ideas, while developments in physiology, pathology, laboratory science and microbiology gradually changed explanations of disease. He traces the evolution of therapies, surgery and hospitals, highlighting extraordinary changes such as the introduction of anaesthesia and antisepsis, the development of vaccines and antibiotics, and the emergence of modern surgical techniques and organ transplantation. Hospitals themselves changed from institutions primarily offering refuge and charitable care into centres of specialised treatment, research and medical education. Throughout, however, Porter reminds us that progress was uneven and that medical practitioners have often worked with incomplete knowledge, making mistakes as well as important discoveries.
The final sections consider medicine as a social institution as well as a scientific enterprise. Porter examines the growing expectations placed upon modern medicine and the tensions created by increasingly sophisticated—and expensive—healthcare systems. The remarkable successes of modern medicine have encouraged people to expect ever more from doctors and technology, while potentially making healthcare more impersonal and bureaucratic. This social perspective is one of the book’s particular strengths: Porter is interested not only in what medicine discovered but in how medical knowledge affected patients, doctors and wider society. Although reviewers noted that the book’s brevity sometimes results in a rapid progression through people and discoveries, its lively style makes it an excellent introduction to the history of medicine. For biologists, it is especially valuable because it demonstrates how developments in anatomy, physiology, microbiology and laboratory science gradually transformed medicine into the biological science we recognise today.
Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar (2019)
Sandeep Jauhar’s Heart: A History tells the story of how one of the most familiar yet mysterious organs in the human body gradually became understood by medicine. For centuries, the heart was regarded not only as a biological pump but as the seat of the soul, emotions and human identity, making it culturally and scientifically distinctive. Jauhar traces the development of our understanding of cardiac anatomy and physiology and the gradual abandonment of long-standing taboos surrounding the heart. He introduces the physicians and scientists who took extraordinary risks to investigate and treat cardiac disease, showing how observations, experiments and sometimes chance discoveries gradually transformed cardiology. Importantly, Jauhar combines this medical history with his own experiences as a cardiologist and his family’s history of heart disease, giving the scientific story a strongly personal dimension.
Much of the book focuses on the remarkable development of modern cardiac surgery and technology. Jauhar describes the pioneering work that made open-heart surgery possible, including Daniel Hale Williams’s pioneering operation, C. Walton Lillehei’s work that helped pave the way for the heart-lung machine, and Wilson Greatbatch’s accidental invention of the implantable pacemaker. He also explores the development of artificial hearts, transplantation and other technologies that have transformed the treatment of cardiovascular disease. These stories demonstrate how advances in cardiology were often achieved through a combination of physiological knowledge, engineering, experimentation and considerable personal courage. They also reveal the ethical complexities of medical progress: many early procedures involved risks that would be unacceptable under modern research standards, with doctors, patients and animals sometimes exposed to extraordinary levels of danger in the search for new treatments.
Ultimately, Heart: A History is not simply a history of cardiac medicine but an examination of the relationship between technological medicine, human behaviour and health. Jauhar acknowledges the extraordinary achievements of modern cardiology, but argues that increasingly sophisticated drugs, devices and surgical procedures cannot by themselves eliminate cardiovascular disease. He places considerable emphasis on lifestyle, stress, relationships and the social circumstances in which people live, suggesting that preventing heart disease may ultimately be as important as developing ever more advanced treatments. For biologists, the book provides an engaging example of how anatomy, physiology, engineering, experimentation and clinical medicine can come together to transform our understanding of a biological system. It also illustrates a broader lesson in the history of medicine: scientific and technological progress can dramatically expand what is possible, but understanding the biology of disease (and preventing it in the first place) remains just as important as developing new ways of treating it.
The History of Medicine in Twelve Objects by Carol Cooper (2024)
The History of Medicine in Twelve Objects takes an engaging and unconventional approach to the history of medicine, using twelve important medical objects as starting points for exploring how healthcare has developed. Rather than presenting a straightforward chronological history, Cooper shows how individual instruments reflect changing ideas about the human body, disease and treatment. The objects range from the ancient trephine and bone saw to the microscope, stethoscope, hypodermic syringe, X-ray machine, prosthetic hip and heart-lung machine. Together, they demonstrate the extraordinary journey from relatively crude and sometimes brutal interventions to sophisticated technologies capable of diagnosing, monitoring and treating conditions that were once untreatable.
A particular strength of the book is the way Cooper connects technological developments with the people, discoveries and changing scientific knowledge behind them. The microscope, for example, opens the door to the hidden world of cells and microorganisms and the development of germ theory, while the stethoscope illustrates how physicians learned to extract information about the internal workings of the body simply by listening. The ether inhaler introduces the transformation of surgery through anaesthesia, while the X-ray machine demonstrates how physics could make the previously invisible structures of the body visible. Other chapters explore obstetric forceps, electroconvulsive therapy, hip replacement and the heart-lung machine, showing that medical progress has rarely resulted from a single discovery but instead from the gradual refinement of ideas, instruments and techniques.
Ultimately, The History of Medicine in Twelve Objects is a celebration of human curiosity, ingenuity and the continuing attempt to understand and alleviate disease and suffering. Cooper’s medical background gives the book a practical perspective, while her accessible writing and use of anecdotes make complex developments approachable for the general reader. Importantly, the objects also illustrate a broader lesson about medicine: advances in healthcare depend upon developments across biology, chemistry, physics, engineering and technology, as well as upon changing attitudes towards patients and disease. For biologists, the book is therefore a particularly useful reminder that modern medicine has evolved alongside our understanding of the natural world. It provides an entertaining introduction to medical history while demonstrating how scientific discoveries can ultimately be transformed into practical tools that profoundly alter human health and longevity.
The Knife Man: Blood, Body-snatching and the Birth of Modern Surgery by Wendy Moore (2006)
The Knife Man: Blood, Body-snatching and the Birth of Modern Surgery is a vivid biography of John Hunter (1728–1793), one of the most important figures in the development of modern surgery and anatomy. Born into a relatively humble Scottish family, Hunter travelled to London to work with his elder brother William, eventually establishing himself as an innovative surgeon, anatomist and teacher. At a time when surgery was extremely painful and dangerous, Hunter challenged established medical traditions by insisting that surgical practice should be grounded in careful observation, anatomy and experimentation. His approach was distinctly empirical: rather than simply accepting the teachings of earlier authorities, he dissected human and animal bodies, conducted experiments and carefully observed disease processes. Moore presents Hunter as a product of the Enlightenment, driven by an almost obsessive curiosity about how living organisms work.
The book’s title reflects one of the darker aspects of Hunter’s work. His desire to acquire human bodies for dissection drew him into the dangerous and sometimes criminal world of eighteenth-century body-snatching, when corpses were stolen from graves and sold to anatomists. Hunter accumulated an enormous collection of anatomical specimens, including bones, organs and preserved tissues, and his investigations extended far beyond human anatomy. He was fascinated by natural history and kept an extensive menagerie, dissecting animals and comparing their structures in an attempt to understand biological function and development. His interests consequently connected surgery with comparative anatomy and natural history, and Moore portrays him as someone whose thinking about variation, development and the natural world anticipated some ideas that would later become central to evolutionary biology. His collection ultimately became an important scientific resource and is associated with the origins of the Hunterian collections.
Ultimately, The Knife Man is as much a story about the emergence of scientific medicine as it is a biography of an extraordinary individual. Hunter’s willingness to challenge conventional wisdom helped move surgery away from traditional practices and towards a discipline based on anatomy, observation and experiment. Yet Moore does not portray him as an uncomplicated hero: his treatment of human remains, his willingness to experiment and his relentless pursuit of specimens raise ethical questions that remain relevant to science today. This combination of scientific brilliance, personal eccentricity and moral ambiguity makes Hunter particularly fascinating for biologists. His career illustrates how advances in medicine can emerge from basic biological investigation, while his work as an anatomist and naturalist demonstrates the historically close relationship between medicine, comparative anatomy, zoology and evolutionary biology. Moore’s lively and often gruesome account therefore provides an entertaining window into eighteenth-century medicine while showing how curiosity about the structure and function of living organisms helped lay foundations for modern biological science.
The Facemaker: One Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I by Lindsey Fitzharris (2022)
The Facemaker: One Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I tells the story of Harold Gillies, the pioneering surgeon who helped establish modern reconstructive and plastic surgery during the First World War. The development of increasingly destructive weapons meant that medical technology was struggling to keep pace with the injuries produced by industrialised warfare, and thousands of soldiers survived with devastating injuries to their faces. Fitzharris describes how Gillies recognised that these men required specialist treatment and established a dedicated centre for facial reconstruction at Queen’s Hospital in Sidcup, Kent, which opened in 1917. Working with surgeons, dentists, nurses, anaesthetists and artists, Gillies developed new techniques for rebuilding damaged noses, jaws, cheeks, lips and eyelids.
A particularly powerful aspect of the book is Fitzharris’s emphasis on the experiences of the wounded soldiers themselves. Facial injuries carried a distinctive psychological and social burden: while amputees could often be publicly regarded as war heroes, men with severely disfigured faces could face fear, revulsion and social isolation. Gillies therefore understood that reconstructive surgery was about much more than repairing damaged tissue, it was also about restoring identity, confidence and the possibility of returning to society. His techniques included ingenious skin-flap procedures in which tissue was moved while maintaining its blood supply, and many patients required numerous operations over long periods. Fitzharris also explores the contribution of Henry Tonks, whose detailed paintings documented patients before and after reconstruction, providing an important visual record of both their injuries and the remarkable results of surgery.
Ultimately, The Facemaker is a story about how the horrors of war accelerated medical innovation and helped establish the foundations of modern reconstructive surgery. Fitzharris shows that Gillies’s achievements resulted not simply from individual surgical brilliance but from collaboration between different disciplines, careful observation, experimentation and a willingness to develop entirely new approaches when existing medicine was inadequate. The book also provides an important reminder that successful medical treatment involves more than repairing the body: psychological wellbeing, dignity and social acceptance can be equally important components of recovery. For biologists, the story is particularly fascinating because it demonstrates how anatomy, tissue biology, wound healing, surgery and technological innovation can converge to solve extraordinarily complex biological problems. The Facemaker therefore provides both a compelling history of medicine and an illustration of how fundamental biological knowledge can ultimately be translated into life-changing clinical practice.
Burke and Hare: The True Story Behind the Infamous Edinburgh Murderers by Owen Dudley-Edwards (2014)
Burke and Hare: The True Story Behind the Infamous Edinburgh Murderers examines one of the most notorious episodes in the history of nineteenth-century medicine, when William Burke and William Hare murdered people in Edinburgh and sold their bodies to the anatomist Robert Knox for dissection. The story began when an elderly lodger died naturally at Hare’s boarding house in the West Port in 1827. Rather than burying him, Burke and Hare discovered that there was a lucrative market for fresh corpses among Edinburgh anatomists and sold the body to Knox. They subsequently turned to murder, suffocating vulnerable people and supplying their bodies to the medical profession. Dudley-Edwards goes beyond the familiar sensational story, examining the backgrounds of Burke and Hare, their Irish origins, the social conditions in which they lived and the circumstances that helped turn an opportunity to make money from a corpse into a series of murders.
A major theme of the book is the uncomfortable relationship between the development of anatomy and the demand for human bodies. Early nineteenth-century Edinburgh was one of Europe’s leading centres for medical education and anatomical research, but legitimate supplies of cadavers were severely restricted. Anatomists therefore operated within a system in which bodies obtained through grave robbing and other illicit means could be highly valuable. Burke and Hare exploited this demand, while Robert Knox’s willingness to purchase bodies without sufficiently questioning their provenance raises important questions about the responsibilities of medical scientists. Dudley-Edwards places the murders within the wider context of the Scottish Enlightenment, medical education, anatomy and the social and economic conditions of Edinburgh, showing that the case cannot be understood simply as the story of two particularly ruthless criminals. The resulting scandal exposed serious problems in the way anatomy was being practised and contributed to growing pressure for reform of the supply of bodies for medical education.
Ultimately, Burke and Hare is both a true-crime narrative and a revealing piece of medical and social history. Dudley-Edwards reconstructs the investigation, trial and betrayal that eventually brought the murders to an end, while carefully examining the evidence and the competing interpretations surrounding the case. The book is particularly interesting for biologists because it illustrates a period when anatomical knowledge was advancing rapidly but the ethical and legal frameworks governing scientific research had not developed at the same pace. It raises enduring questions about where the bodies and biological materials used in research come from, the responsibilities of scientists towards individuals and communities, and the ethical boundaries of scientific curiosity. The Burke and Hare story is therefore more than a gruesome historical episode: it provides a striking example of how the pursuit of biological knowledge can become entangled with economics, social inequality and ethics, and why responsible research practices are essential to the progress of modern medicine and biology.
Vital Organs: A History of the World’s Most Famous Body Parts by Suzie Edge (2024)
Vital Organs: A History of the World’s Most Famous Body Parts takes an unusual and entertaining approach to medical history by telling the stories of more than forty famous (and sometimes infamous) body parts. Rather than following a conventional chronology, Edge uses individual organs, limbs and anatomical specimens as gateways into the lives of historical figures and the societies in which they lived. The subjects range from Napoleon’s penis and Van Gogh’s ear to Percy Shelley’s heart, Marie Curie’s bone marrow, Marie Antoinette’s teeth and Hitler’s testicle. Through these often extraordinary stories, Edge explores the ways human remains have been preserved, displayed, worshipped, experimented upon, stolen and used as historical evidence. The result is a mixture of anatomy, biography, medical history and sometimes rather gruesome storytelling.
One of the book’s strengths is the way apparently bizarre stories are used to illuminate genuine developments in medicine and biology. Queen Victoria’s armpit, for example, becomes an entry point into the history of antisepsis, while Marie Curie’s illness and bone marrow provide an opportunity to explore radiation and its biological effects. Other cases introduce subjects ranging from anatomy and pathology to infectious disease, surgery and medical ethics. Edge also considers the cultural significance attached to particular body parts, demonstrating that human remains have not simply been objects of scientific investigation but have also served as relics, trophies, political symbols and sources of fascination. This combination of medical science and human history makes the book particularly accessible, while the author’s background as both a doctor and historian gives the stories a useful medical perspective.
Ultimately, Vital Organs demonstrates that the history of medicine can be explored through much more than famous discoveries and celebrated physicians. The physical remains of individuals provide a surprisingly intimate way of connecting anatomy and physiology with history, culture and society. Edge’s approach also reminds us that the human body has long been an object of scientific curiosity, but that the collection, preservation and display of human remains raise important ethical questions about consent, ownership and dignity. For biologists, the book offers an entertaining reminder that behind anatomical structures and physiological processes are real organisms (and real people) with fascinating histories. It is therefore an engaging introduction to medical history that combines scientific explanation with unusual anecdotes, humour and some decidedly macabre subject matter.
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris (2018)
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine tells the story of Joseph Lister and the extraordinary transformation of nineteenth-century surgery. Before the widespread adoption of antiseptic techniques, surgery was a brutal and dangerous undertaking: although anaesthesia had made longer operations possible, patients remained highly vulnerable to infections afterwards. Surgeons often operated in filthy environments, reused instruments without adequate cleaning and wore bloodstained clothing as badges of experience. Post-operative infection was so common that death following surgery could seem almost inevitable. Fitzharris vividly recreates this world while following Lister, a relatively quiet and methodical surgeon who became increasingly interested in the biological causes of wound infection.
The scientific breakthrough came when Lister connected the emerging ideas of germ theory with the problem of surgical infection. Inspired by Louis Pasteur’s work on microorganisms, Lister reasoned that microscopic organisms could be responsible for the decomposition and infection of wounds. He began experimenting with carbolic acid as an antiseptic, developing a system in which wounds, instruments, dressings and the surgeon’s hands were treated to reduce contamination. His early successes at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, including the treatment of severe compound fractures, demonstrated that infection could be dramatically reduced. Lister subsequently refined his methods, introducing antiseptic dressings, catgut sutures and other measures designed to prevent microorganisms entering wounds. His ideas were initially met with considerable resistance, however, and Fitzharris shows how scientific progress often depends not only on producing convincing evidence but also on persuading a professional community to abandon deeply established practices and beliefs.
Ultimately, The Butchering Art is a story about the moment when medicine and modern biological science began to come together. Lister’s achievement was not simply the invention of a new surgical technique; it was the application of an emerging understanding of microbiology to a practical medical problem, helping to transform surgery from a high-risk procedure into a much safer and more sophisticated discipline. Fitzharris also avoids presenting Lister as infallible: some aspects of his antiseptic system, such as the carbolic spray intended to disinfect the air, were later shown to be unnecessary as understanding of infection improved. For biologists, this makes the book particularly valuable because it demonstrates how discoveries about microorganisms, infection and wound healing can revolutionise clinical practice. It also provides a powerful lesson in scientific progress: new knowledge can be resisted, refined and ultimately transformed into technologies and practices that fundamentally change human survival.
The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine by Thomas Morris (2019)
The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine by Thomas Morris is an entertaining and often gruesome exploration of the stranger corners of medical history. Rather than offering a conventional chronological history, Morris mines centuries of medical journals, newspapers and textbooks for extraordinary cases that reveal how doctors and patients understood the human body before modern medicine had developed. The title itself comes from a series of nineteenth-century reports describing people whose teeth apparently exploded after severe toothache, a phenomenon for which no convincing explanation has ever been established. Alongside this are stories of mysterious illnesses, bizarre accidents, improbable anatomical conditions and extraordinary recoveries, creating a collection that is as much about human curiosity as it is about medicine. The British edition was published by Corgi in 2019, although the book first appeared in English in 2018.
The strength of the book is the way Morris uses individual cases to expose both the ingenuity and the limitations of earlier medical practice. His examples include a French soldier who operated on his own bladder stone, a sailor who swallowed penknives, patients subjected to extraordinary operations before modern anaesthesia, and people treated with remedies that seem absurd (or positively dangerous) from a modern perspective. The cases are arranged thematically into categories such as mysterious illnesses, horrifying operations, unusual treatments, unfortunate predicaments and remarkable recoveries rather than as a continuous historical narrative. Morris’s humour makes even the most stomach-churning stories accessible, but there is a serious purpose beneath the entertainment: these accounts demonstrate how doctors were attempting to understand disease and injury with incomplete knowledge, limited technology and sometimes deeply flawed theories. Importantly, Morris does not simply ridicule historical practitioners; many of the doctors featured were working conscientiously within the scientific limitations of their time, and some displayed remarkable ingenuity in trying to save their patients.
For biologists, the book is particularly interesting because it provides a vivid reminder that modern understanding of the body has been built through observation, experimentation, error and the gradual replacement of speculation with evidence. The bizarre cases are effectively natural-history observations of human biology: they document unusual anatomy, pathological processes, trauma, infection, physiological responses and the extraordinary capacity of the human body to survive. They also demonstrate why medical history matters to biological science. What may now appear obvious (about infection, anatomy, physiology or the mechanisms of disease) was often extraordinarily difficult to establish at the time. The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth therefore works on two levels: it is a wonderfully macabre collection of medical curiosities, but it is also a cautionary tale about scientific certainty. Morris shows that today’s medical knowledge, like biological knowledge more generally, is provisional and continually refined as new evidence, technologies and explanations become available.
Foreign Bodies: The Terror of Contagion, the Ingenuity of Science by Simon Schama (2024)
Foreign Bodies: The Terror of Contagion, the Ingenuity of Science by Simon Schama is a sweeping history of epidemics, vaccination and the struggle to understand infectious disease, written with the Covid-19 pandemic very much in the background. Rather than beginning with modern microbiology, Schama takes readers into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when smallpox, cholera and plague could devastate communities and when the causes of disease were often mysterious. He moves between London, Paris, India and other centres of scientific and medical innovation, showing how epidemics were experienced not simply as biological events but as social and political crises. Hospitals, prisons, palaces and overcrowded slums all become settings in which fear of contagion collided with attempts to control it. Published in 2023 in hardback and in a 2024 UK paperback edition, the book deliberately connects these historical experiences with the anxieties revealed by Covid-19.
One of the book’s most compelling themes is the development of vaccination and the individuals who helped transform it from a controversial and sometimes frightening intervention into one of the most powerful tools of public health. Schama gives particular attention to Waldemar Haffkine, the Jewish-born microbiologist who trained at the Pasteur Institute before working in India, where he developed vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague and established what the publisher describes as the world’s first mass-production line for vaccines in Mumbai. His achievements are set against the political and social complexities of British India, where scientific innovation, colonial power, racial prejudice and institutional conservatism were deeply intertwined. Schama also brings together stories of less celebrated medical practitioners, including vaccinators working in Britain and women involved in combating epidemic disease in India. This gives the history a distinctly human character: scientific progress emerges not as an inevitable march towards truth, but as something dependent upon individual courage, experimentation, collaboration and the willingness of institutions to accept unfamiliar ideas.
For biologists, Foreign Bodies is especially valuable because it demonstrates how profoundly biological processes can shape human history—and how human responses, in turn, influence the course of disease. Epidemics provide a meeting point between microbiology, evolution, ecology, medicine, public health and human behaviour: pathogens exploit biological opportunities, while populations respond through immunity, behavioural change, medical intervention and social organisation. Schama’s central message is also highly relevant to contemporary biology: infectious diseases do not respect political or cultural boundaries, and scientific solutions depend upon international cooperation and the movement of ideas as much as they do upon laboratory discoveries. His history therefore provides a useful complement to a purely scientific account of epidemiology or vaccinology. It reminds us that successful disease control involves trust, politics, economics, communication and human behaviour alongside biology. In the aftermath of Covid-19, that perspective makes the book particularly timely—and its insistence on the interconnectedness of humans, pathogens and the wider natural world gives it a relevance extending well beyond the history of medicine.
The history of medicine is, in many ways, also a history of biology. Our changing understanding of disease, anatomy, physiology, infection and evolution has been built through centuries of observing living organisms (including humans), but also the animals with which we share the planet. From early comparative anatomy and the study of animal organs to microscopy, parasitology, microbiology and genetics, animals have repeatedly provided the evidence, models and sometimes the inspiration for medical discoveries. Even some of the darker episodes in medical history, from dissection and experimentation to the use of animals in research, raise important questions about how biological knowledge is acquired and the ethical boundaries that should govern it. For zoologists, therefore, medical history is much more than a record of doctors and diseases. It provides a fascinating window into the interconnectedness of human and animal biology and demonstrates how advances in one field can transform another. Veterinary medicine, comparative pathology, zoonotic disease, epidemiology, parasitology, immunology and conservation medicine all sit at the interface between zoology and human health. Understanding these connections is increasingly important as habitat change, wildlife trade, climate change and human–wildlife interactions alter opportunities for pathogens to move between species. Looking back at how humans have tried to understand disease and the body therefore helps zoologists appreciate not only where modern biological knowledge has come from, but also how the study of animals can help us address the medical and ecological challenges of the future. At least, that is my take on things anyway.
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