∎ PDF Free Blood Work A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution Holly Tucker 9780393070552 Books

Blood Work A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution Holly Tucker 9780393070552 Books

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Blood Work A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution Holly Tucker 9780393070552 Books

This book was a good read for medical history, but was not on the same level as other medical histories that I've read. It stalled in a couple of places, and I found that occasionally all the other extraneous information added not related to the story itself, would sometimes be confusing.

I had no idea that transfusion was considered back in the 1600's. All it took was one arrogant physician, trying to push the envelope. And if you've been in medical school, you've seen a few of those. In this case, dealing with such an unknown (they did not know about the cell markers in blood at that point which would cause clotting reactions if people were given the wrong blood type). It's too bad that Jean-Baptise Denis couldn't see our use of blood today, and see how well his idea saves lives today. Now to be fair, he wasn't the first to try transfusion. That definitely belongs to the British. But he tried hard, in spite of religious and medical objections, to demonstrate the possibilities of transfusions. It boggles the mind to consider that if transfusions had been possible that far back (with continued research), the lives that could have been saved in all the wars.

The research for this book probably wasn't easily done. Especially if you had to get rare material in French, from the courts and royal records kept almost 500 years ago. Apparently, the author, Tucker, knows French as well as English, so that explains a lot.

This is a great book to read if you want to understand how far back medical research goes, and many of the obstacles that are put in the way of those who do research.


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Blood Work A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution Holly Tucker 9780393070552 Books Reviews

Thoroughly engaging read. This is one of the few books I've picked up and read through without putting down. Ms. Tucker weaves an intellectual stimulating tale with rich visuals and quirky characters through the fabric of history in medicine. I highly recommend for those Early Modern era aficionados looking to learn about the practice of medicine and its evolution.
The book does a workmanlike job of covering the blood-transfusion controversies and fallouts from the mid-1600s. I did learn many new things on the topic, and would recommend that segment of the book for background information on the subject. The complex interaction between English and French scientists, private vs. government sponsorship, and the poisonous lengths some people went to in forcing their opinions on others are very instructive. There is no dramatic revealing of the murderer in court, but the narrative of the experiments are quite adequate for that. The insights into their concerns about what we would now call genetic engineering are similar to concerns today, though with a nonfactual background.
Unfortunately, the author slipped into a highly partisan political commentary at the end of the book, which detracts from the effective history in the remainder of the text.
I loved City of Lights City of Poison. So with a tile of “A Tale of Medicine and Murder” I expected another true-crime narrative from Tucker. This reads less like a tale and more like a textbook.

Also, with the focus being early medicine and blood transfusions there is quite a focus on animal experimentation- an expected topic for a book on blood transfusions but not what I was looking for.
My science-focused book club read this and it was interesting. It was also really, really cringe-inducing for any animal lover. A LOT of the book is about guys taking strays, farm animals and even their own pets and transfusing them crudely, without anaesthesia. (It does a great job of illustrating the dichotomy between the attitude of the time that animals can't really feel or process pain and the refusal by some researchers to use their own companion animals due to the observable trauma - something our present-day scientists also struggle with). The book is pitched as showing the inner workings of the scientific establishment during the Enlightenment but I didn't find that part terribly well done. It sort of wandered...there aren't any good guys and the list of bit players gets confusingly long. While Holly has clearly done her research, the book doesn't answer some of the questions one would logically ask. For example, it tells us dogs have many more blood types than humans, but doesn't explain why dog transfusions showed positive results in most of the canine transfusion recipients when the centrepiece of the book is the damage done to a human who received incompatible blood. OTOH this is a great distillation of the period and the early history of transfusion research.

BTW Holly is extremely responsive to requests for information and interviews. In our case, she not only video conferenced with the book club (only 40 members and we'd already purchased the book) but is coming to the Decatur Book Festival on Labor Day weekend. I would probably give the book itself 3 1/2 stars, but Holly's responsiveness and charm made me bump it up instead of down. With better editing, her next book (and I hope there is one) should be awesome!
This book is more about the controversy surrounding human blood transfusions than the actual history of transfusions themselves. I think that many readers (including myself) were expecting something else but after reading the epilogue for the book I have a better understanding of why the author was trying to do and why she wrote the book. I think that it would have been better to explain some of that in the beginning of the book so that the reader would have a better understanding of what the author was going for. That being said, this is still and interesting easy read. The author does a good job of making the time period come alive and the back stories explaining the intrigues of 17th century european politics was very well written. If your looking for a detailed academic study of early work in blood transfusions, you will be disappointed reading this book but if you want to read in engaging story about the general state of medical science in Britain and France in the late 17th century this is a good book to read
This book was a good read for medical history, but was not on the same level as other medical histories that I've read. It stalled in a couple of places, and I found that occasionally all the other extraneous information added not related to the story itself, would sometimes be confusing.

I had no idea that transfusion was considered back in the 1600's. All it took was one arrogant physician, trying to push the envelope. And if you've been in medical school, you've seen a few of those. In this case, dealing with such an unknown (they did not know about the cell markers in blood at that point which would cause clotting reactions if people were given the wrong blood type). It's too bad that Jean-Baptise Denis couldn't see our use of blood today, and see how well his idea saves lives today. Now to be fair, he wasn't the first to try transfusion. That definitely belongs to the British. But he tried hard, in spite of religious and medical objections, to demonstrate the possibilities of transfusions. It boggles the mind to consider that if transfusions had been possible that far back (with continued research), the lives that could have been saved in all the wars.

The research for this book probably wasn't easily done. Especially if you had to get rare material in French, from the courts and royal records kept almost 500 years ago. Apparently, the author, Tucker, knows French as well as English, so that explains a lot.

This is a great book to read if you want to understand how far back medical research goes, and many of the obstacles that are put in the way of those who do research.