Post Mortem: Solving History's Great Medical Mysteries

“Fascinating ... An enjoyable read.”—New England Journal of Medicine

This book combines mystery stories with popular history and medical case studies to offer professional and non-professional readers a fascinating and entertaining experience!

Postmortem examines the controversial lives and deaths of 12 famous men and women, including Alexander the Great, King Herod, Joan of Arc, Mozart, Beethoven, and Edgar Allan Poe.

It also investigates the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten; the Greek statesman and general Pericles; the Roman Emperor Claudius; Christopher Columbus; Florence Nightingale; and Booker T. Washington.

This book traces 3,500 years of the medical history from the perspective of what contemporary physicians thought about the diseases of their renowned patients and how they might have treated them. It describes the characteristics of the illnesses in question, and brings to life the medical history, social history, family history, and physical examination of their famous victims.

Then Postmortem sifts through the medical evidence, testing a wide range of diagnostic theories against the known facts and today’s best scientific research, to arrive at the diagnosis most consistent with the illness described in the historic record.