The history of medicine is fascinating, especially how and why certain diseases have developed with respect to frequency, treatment, and outcome. This book uses the life and death of well-known historical figures who died before age forty to introduce the illness of which they died, and it then proceeds to outline advances in the understanding, diagnosis, and therapy since.
The famous people range from Robert Burns of the late-eighteenth century to Eva Perón and Mario Lanza of the mid-twentieth. Some of the diseases discussed (e.g., rheumatic heart disease and childbirth death) have virtually disappeared, at least in developed countries, and the outcomes of others (e.g., tuberculosis and kidney failure) have improved markedly because of new and effective means of diagnosis and treatment, particularly over the past half-century.