Chapman - Physicians, Plagues and Progress: The History of Western Medicine From Antiquity to Antibiotics

Chapter 2

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 8

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 17

Chapter 19

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Appendix 1

I am indebted to many people, across several decades, for assistance in writing this book. What you will read in these pages goes back a long way, and the ideas they contain were researched and developed in preparing and delivering numerous lectures to academic, medical, and scientific institutions on both sides of the Atlantic. In particular, I thank friends in the University of Minnesota Medical School Department of Surgery, before whom I gave a series of annual lectures between 1986 and 2014, and especially John (Jack) D. Foker, MD, and John Najarian, MD, of that institution. As a historian not formally trained in medicine, I am indebted to these gentlemen and other medical professionals for advice and teaching on specific aspects of clinical technique, though I take full responsibility for any mistakes I may have made.

In June 2010, having first been alerted by my excellent dentist, Mrs Svetlana Dwyer of the Pendlebury Dental Practice, north Manchester, I was diagnosed as having cancer of the palate, a very rare condition for a lifelong non-smoker, non-drug-taker, and one who is very abstemious in alcohol consumption. But this disease opened up a whole new adventure for me, yes, mad as it might sound, an adventure. I became fascinated by the disease and wanted to fully understand it, scientifically and clinically. (A radiologist at Oxford Universitys Churchill Hospital said to me, when I asked to look at my scans and be given a dispassionate scientific analysis, Dr Chapman, you are weird. Seriously weird. I got similar amusing responses when, going in for my 30 outpatient doses of radiotherapy some weeks after surgery, I joked about coming in for my daily fry.)

Yet intellectual curiosity, in conjunction with a strong sense and acceptance of Gods providence, trumped fear as I embarked upon a maxillofacial oncological learning adventure. Apart from reading the clinical literature, I am very grateful to the surgical team at Oxfords John Radcliffe Hospital Max-Fax Department, in particular Mr Steve Watt-Smith, Mr Steve Bond, and Miss Jennifer Wylie (Mrs Graystone), not only for the wonderful surgery they performed on me, but also for all the information they gave me about oncological diagnostics and step-by-step operating theatre technique. (Exactly how does a surgeon remove a patients palate without splitting the head open?)

Following surgery, I am greatly indebted to Dr Sandip Popat and Dr Malcolm Berry, Robert Lawson, Michelle Nevitt, and colleagues, for superb reconstructive and prosthetic surgery to my mouth and ongoing dental care, and for teaching me so much, and even inviting me to visit the hospital laboratories. Similar thanks are owed to Dr Gywneth Hueter for her clinical expertise and teaching pertaining to the ear, nose, and throat system. I also give my thanks to Mr Peter Burge of Oxfords Nuffield Orthopaedic Hospital for his skilful operating upon my hand for carpal tunnel syndrome and, as the procedure was done under a local anaesthetic, for allowing me to watch the operation and even giving me something of a tutorial as he and his colleagues laid bare my median nerve and adjacent structures.