Abstract
Ben Moore has published Benjamin Moore, FRS Biochemist, Doctor and Medical Reformer (ISBN 978-1-4461-9683-0) at a cost of £17 plus postage and packing. It is the biography by the son of his father who studied in Belfast and worked in many centres including Leipzig, University College London, Yale, Charing Cross and Liverpool. It is not heavy on illustrations but it is very readable with many references too. The author indicates it has been published by Lulu Enterprises, Inc. at Raleigh, NC, USA and that copies may be ordered on line.
Napoleon & I or the significant Miss Fanny Mitchell by Robert Shelley (ISBN 978-1-8468-9114-4, Quiller Publishing, Shrewsbury) boasts a delightful paper cover bearing Napoleon Bees. This is a translation by an Oxford qualified doctor who asks why Napoleon's medical treatment fell apart on St Helena. Fanny is the mistress of the Admiral in command of the St Helena Naval Station. A good read.
Medical Muses: Hysteria in nineteenth-century Paris by Asti Hustvedt (ISBN 978-0-7475-7633-4, Bloomsbury) considers the position of women in the Salpetriere and of Charcot's place in their management. Emile Zola's fictional characters are included as is the real Blanche Witmann who in 1877 was admitted at the age of 18 years. This book adds to the literature on Charcot and his neurological view of hysteria and is a volume very well produced.
Dr Trevor Hughes in Oxford has published again and this time it is a magnificent volume of Thomas Browne, a facsimile of Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquiries into very many received tenents and commonly presumed truths. This sixth and last edition is dated 1672 and the work forms a large and valued work for private shelf and for public library. The work is from Rimes House in Oxford and is dated 2011.
Mr Wilf Selley has written ‘A History of the Devon and Exeter Dental Hospital, 1880–1936′ (Transactions of the Devonshire Association 2010;
The name of RD Laing (1927–1989) is well-known to most medics and Allan Beveridge has written Portrait of the psychiatrist as a young man, the early writing and work of r.d. laing, 1927–1960, published by Oxford University Press as part of their series International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry and this volume does cover aspects of both disciplines and makes interesting reading to those who do not have formal training in either. The volume (ISBN 978-0-19-958357-7) is attractively produced and has the great advantage that the annotations form footnotes at the bottom of each page and this makes easy reading. Oxford University Press has also published Surnames, DNA, and Family History by Redmonds, King and Hey (ISBN 978-0-19-958264-8) the title of which speaks for itself, and the hardback volume will interest medical biographers and provide them with some hard facts about the science behind family history studies.
Patrick Neill: Doyen of Scottish Horticulture by Forbes W Robertson has been published by Whittles of Caithness (ISBN 978-1-84995-032-9). It is stated to be of especial appeal to anyone interested in the history of horticulture, botany, plants, travel and historical biographies and this is the case. Neill (1776–1851) was descended from a Haddington family of printers and booksellers, and became head of the most prestigious printing firm in Edinburgh. He was a founder member and secretary for 40 years of the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society and had a remarkable garden at Canonmills, one mile from the centre of Edinburgh, where a fine collection of plants could be seen. Not a doctor, but an interesting biographical figure.