(#9 in the 2006 book challenge)
The author, I gather, is somewhat well known in medical circles for both his research work in rheumatology and for writing droll little scientific essays, of which this book is a collection. The essays were all, as far as I can tell, originally published in specialized journals and magazines so the primary audience is made up of MDs and PhDs, and it shows. Thinking that I am a relatively bright person, I figured I could pick up most of the medical points from context, but not so much, it turns out. Most of the essays are tied together along this theme of the overlap between science (he means biology and medical science, not physics or astronomy or anything like that) and the humanities. You could tell he liked his theme a lot, because even when things didn't quite fit into it, he gosh darn made it fit. I would have liked this book a little better if that hadn't been quite so forced. The most compelling essay was one about a Dr. Ludwik Fleck. He was Jewish, and Polish, and early on in his career wrote a book about how scientific ideas and research are driven by societial conditions. Later on, it turns out that Dr. Fleck was only allowed to work in the Jewish hospital, where he started developing a typhus vaccine, as typhus was problematic in the Jewish ghetto. He and his family were then relocated to Auschwitz, where he was graciously allowed to continue his typhus work, typhus being the second most common cause of death among the population there. He gave his own family members his vaccine, so they were spared from typhus although most of them later succumbed to the primary cause of death at the camp.

After being liberated, he continued his medical research, although his specific typhus vaccine was already obsolete because a more effective one had been discovered by someone else in the mean time. However, he had developed a new procedure in the course of creating his vaccine which went on to make some sort of significant contribution to the treatment of some other disease (this was were I was losing track of the medical jargon, but Dr. Weissmann was quite enthusiastic about it).

Annoyingly enough, in another essay the author goes on to pooh-pooh some academic writer who suggests that science is a product of the societial values in which the researcher is working ... the whole book is like this, you feel like you learn something new and cool, and then two minutes later your eyes are rolling at smug Dr. Weissmann.

Grade: A-
Recommended: This probably reads A LOT better if you are actually a doctor or have a higher degree in one of the life sciences. The blurb on the back compares the author to Oliver Sacks, which is so very untrue in terms of the ease of reading for someone who doesn't have specialized knowledge ahead of time. That said, it's still good for people who are interested in the history of medicine. ( )