Scott Shane
"An enthralling and honest history of the first century of scientific medicine in the form of penetrating portraits of ten pioneers. Overcoming obstacles that included addiction, deafness, rampant sexism, vicious racism and hard-shelled tradition, the ten made possible the medicine of today. Their courage and resilience are a bracing example."
David Louie
"The names Edison, Einstein and Pasteur stand out as inventors, trailblazers and visionaries who changed our world. But in the field of medicine, there are other names we should know. Over a century ago, these ten men and women pioneered how doctors were trained, developed techniques for modern surgery, addressed hygiene issues, and more, all while making great personal sacrifices and enduring hardship. Together, their contributions were transformative. These engaging profiles by Ralph Hruban and Will Linder show how the collective impact of these four women and six men laid the foundation for today’s rigorous standards for patient care and clinical research."
Ric Cottom
"From the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions pioneered new procedures and treatments that put patients’ health, comfort, and safety foremost. Beginning with John Shaw Billings, who witnessed firsthand the horrors of Civil War medicine and who subsequently gave hospitals their first modern design, to Vivien Thomas, a son of enslaved people, who tolerated bitter racial discrimination while pioneering new procedures in heart surgery, here are ten compelling portraits of men and women engaged in a great scientific revolution."
Jon LaPook
This book’s strength lies in the honesty of its storytelling. Hruban and Linder bring us into a world where institutional politics, sexism, and racism created severe barriers not only to health equity but to scientific accomplishment.”—
Robert Dallek
"Ralph Hruban and Will Linder's history of medical advances through the lives of medical pioneers is a fascinating history that should be read by every American who enjoys the benefits of modern medicine. This is biological history at its best."
Booklist
Hruban and Linder's portraits form striking and accountable medical history that spotlights both discrimination and groundbreaking contributions, including those valiantly made by individuals who overcame prejudice and other obstacles.
The Wall Street Journal
"The transformation of American medicine into the science-driven discipline we know today is largely attributable to a single institution, Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and to the women and men who breathed life into it. Their stories form the center of A Scientific Revolution, an uplifting collection of biographical vignettes by Hopkins pathologist Ralph Hruban and writer Will Linder. Dr. Hruban and Mr. Linder’s portraits capture an inflection point in American medicine: the ambition and excitement of it, the sense of moment experienced by those who were leading the revolution.”
From the Foreword
"The legendary Johns Hopkins Hospital has finally found its bards; their names are Ralph Hruban and Will Linder... My prescription... is to turn the page and begin reading the sterling essays on the medical disrupters that follow. I am confident that all who do, will savor every chapter."
Library Journal
03/11/2022
Hruban (pathology and oncology, Johns Hopkins Univ. Sch. of Medicine) and writer/editor Linder have transformed a series of lectures given online during COVID by Dr. Hruban into a book that celebrates 10 noteworthy people in the history of Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine. The book is a collection of short biographies, based on information from secondary sources as well as autobiographies, with an emphasis on the contributions of the person to the history of medicine during the time they were affiliated with Johns Hopkins. The subjects range from Mary Elizabeth Garrett, a railroad heiress who gave money to start the medical school as long as women were admitted, to Dr. William Osler, the first physician-in-chief at the new Johns Hopkins Hospital. The book also includes Dr. Dorothy Reed Mendenhall, whose cancer research confirmed the cells involved in Hodgkins disease, but was denied a faculty position at Johns Hopkins by Dr. William Welsh, another subject presented in this book. There is some mention of the structural racism and sexism that existed at Johns Hopkins through the historical periods covered. VERDICT While this is an easy-to-read collection of selective biographies, it will mainly be of interest to those interested in Johns Hopkins.—Margaret Henderson
Kirkus Reviews
2022-07-18
A collection of 10 biographical vignettes of men and women connected to Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medical School who all contributed to the progress of medicine.
According to pathologist Hruban and author Linder, a revolution in medicine occurred in the late-19th and early-20th centuries that transformed the industry forever, and Johns Hopkins Hospital played a pivotal role in it. As University of Michigan School of Medicine professor Dr. Howard Markel states in a foreword: Johns Hopkins “played an instrumental role in pulling American medicine out of the muck and mire of nineteenth-century humoralism, bloodletting, and industrial-strength toxins posing as therapeutics.” The authors convey the significance of the institution by documenting, with great clarity and historical rigor, the groundbreaking efforts of 10 men and women all associated with it. The book begins with Mary Elizabeth Garrett, a wealthy philanthropist who pledged a considerable donation to Johns Hopkins University for the express creation of a medical school but only on the condition that it admitted women into its inaugural class in 1893. John Shaw Billings, who served as a military surgeon for the Union during the Civil War, not only helped design Johns Hopkins Hospital, but also recruited its first class of leaders. Dr. Jesse W. Lazear was instrumental in determining the causes of yellow fever, especially in Cuba, and died from a self-administered bite from an infected mosquito—a martyr for scientific experimentation. Hruban and Linder cast a wide net in their selection of pioneers; Max Brodel, for instance, wasn’t a physician at all but blazed trails in the art of medical illustration, setting it on a “solid and sustainable course.” The assemblage of synoptic biographies highlights not only the great importance of Johns Hopkins to the advancement of medical science, but also the remarkable distance that science traversed in less than a century. The authors adopt a writing style that’s not only accessible—an impressive feat, since some of the subject matter is technically prohibitive—but also captivating. Readers will be drawn into an edifying chronicle of scientific accomplishment and also into the drama of the people who made it possible. Notably, they consider figures who were marginalized by society; for example, they tell the story of Vivien Thomas, a Black man from the South who was a brilliant laboratory technician and researcher who made essential contributions to cardiac surgery but struggled for recognition in a racist society. The authors don’t mince words regarding prejudice and bias in the rarefied cosmos of Johns Hopkins and in the larger history of medical science. Indeed, they tackle the issue head-on, admitting that their story “has inextricably woven into its fabric the ugly realities of racism, sexism, and a host of other harsh truths. While some of these harsh truths may be understood in the context of their place and their time, this understanding does not absolve past wrongs.” Overall, the authors have produced a historical record that’s riveting as well as edifying and unflinchingly honest, as well.
A readable and informative medical-science chronicle.
