Taking the Medicine

‘For all the wizardry of modern medicine, with its bionic limbs and targeted drugs, doctors still cannot assume they have all the answers. This book offers a valuable inoculation against complacency’’ New Scientist‘Taking The Medicine is both an assault on the myths of the infallible doctor and a history of pharmacology - the search for the one, true treatment… Burch makes a compelling case’ Sunday Telegraph.‘Each chapter is a self-contained pleasure to read, like mini-fables on the perils of medicine’ Sunday TimesDoctors and patients alike trust the medical profession and its therapeutic powers; yet this trust has often been misplaced. Whether prescribing opium or thalidomide, aspirin or antidepressants, doctors have persistently failed to test their favourite ideas – often with catastrophic results. From Revolutionary America to Nazi Germany and modern big-pharmaceuticals, this is the unexpected story of just how bad medicine has been, and of its remarkably recent effort to improve. It is the history of well-meaning doctors misled by hopeful intuition, of the startling human cost of their mistakes, and of the exceptional individuals who have helped make things better. Alarming and optimistic, Taking the Medicine is essential reading for anyone interested in how and why to trust the pills they swallow‘Burch approaches his task with vigour and pace, exploring the therapeutic failures of doctors over the ages…there is much of interest as the story unfolds’ Irish TimesBurch, Druin is the author of 'Taking the Medicine', published 2010 under ISBN 9781845951504 and ISBN 1845951506.