A narrative account of the twentieth president's political career offers insight into his background as a scholar and Civil War hero, his battles against the corrupt establishment, and Alexander Graham Bell's failed attempt to save him from an assassin's bullet.

"What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine--yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison--was dosed like Viagra. Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable,...

"In the early 1800s, women were dying in large numbers from treatable diseases because they avoided receiving medical care. Examinations performed by male doctors were often demeaning and even painful. In addition, women faced stigma from illness--a diagnosis could greatly limit their ability to find husbands, jobs or be received in polite society. Motivated by personal loss and frustration over inadequate medical care, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth...

Presents a series of stories about men and women who, representing both medical and literary oddities, raise fundamental questions about the nature of reality.

In 1946 Eva arrives in New York City, from the rubble of Berlin, supposedly looking for a new life, but actually seeking justice against the Nazis that "escaped" with the help of the CIA; one in particular, the doctor who knows who Eva really is, because her identity is the product Project Bluebird, an experiment of the concentration camps involving brainwashing and mind control, which both the Americans and the Soviets would like access to--and Eva...

"The vivid biography of two pioneering sisters who, together, became America's first female doctors and transformed New York's medical establishment by creating a hospital by and for women. Elizabeth Blackwell believed from an early age that she was destined for greatness beyond the scope of "ordinary" womanhood. Though the world recoiled at the notion of a woman studying medicine, her intelligence and intensity won her the acceptance of the all-male...

"A humorous book about history's worst plagues from the Antonine Plague, to leprosy, to polio and the heroes who fought them In 1518, in a small town in France, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn't stop. She danced herself to her death six days later, and soon thirty-four more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had died from the mysterious dancing plague. In late-nineteenth-century England an eccentric gentleman founded...

When two masterminds--Mary, the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, and Ada, the daughter of Lord Byron--are brought together by fate, they make a shocking--and magical--discovery that draws the attention of a mad scientist.

"James Abram Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, was assassinated when he was shot by Charles Guiteau in July 1881, less than four months after he was elected president. But Garfield didn't actually die until 80 days later. In this page-turner, award-winning author Gail Jarrow delves into the fascinating story of the relationship between Garfield and Guiteau, and relates the gruesome details of Garfield's slow and agonizing death. She...

"This wryly humorous collection of stories about bizarre medical treatments and cases offers a unique portrait of Victorian medicine in all its grisly weirdness. A puzzling series of dental explosions beginning in the nineteenth century, with the most recent case in the 1960s, is just one of many strange tales that have long lain undiscovered in the pages of old medical journals. Award-winning medical historian Thomas Morris has assembled the stories...