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Laddar... Smoking Ears and Screaming Teeth: A Celebration of Scientific Eccentricity and Self-Experimentationav Trevor Norton
Books Read in 2013 (274) Laddar...
Gå med i LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken. Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. Basically a quick, layman's overview of all the stupid things humans have done to themselves in the name of science. Fascinating, though not written for a scientific audience. I really enjoyed it. ( ) A most interesting look at scientists and doctors throughout the years who have chosen to run their experiments on themselves. Starting with early medical practices, the author goes through the development of anesthesia (the use of cocaine was abandoned fairly early on) to blood typing to introducing vaccines against our most deadly diseases. Told in an anecdotal style, many of the accounts were hysterical, and some were simply horrifying! This is all made better by Norton's clever use of language and great storytelling. It's wonderful for dipping in to, or reading for short spells in the car. I love science history. I love it because there is such an eccentric nature that seems so often absent in books about modern scientists. There is just something endearing about people like John Snow, who purposefully gassed himself to unconsciousness to assess their viability as anesthetics. Smoking Ears and Screaming Teeth regales you with such tales, of scientists who contracted deadly diseases, drank poisons, or inhaled toxic gasses in the name of scientific discovery. Trevor Norton is both enlightening and entertaining, the information is very accessible and he presents it with regular doses of humor, which is perfectly appropriate consider the wacky behavior of some of these compulsive scientists. I also like the point he is trying to make with this, speaking out against performing experiments on others and instead encouraging self-experimentation. He says that every scientist that is experimenting on another human being to ask themselves, would you perform this experiment on yourself? If so, then why aren't you? This is one of those science books that I would recommend to those who might not normally read about the subject. Very enjoyable, I will definitely keep my eye out for more books by the author in the future. Don't be fooled by the silly cover; this is an interesting and well-researched book about dedicated (and sometimes foolhardy) scientists who put the quest for discovery above all else. But for the dangers to which they exposed themselves, our world may still have lacked a great deal of life-saving knowledge. This book tells the stories of many of these brave scientists who most people know little to nothing about. My only complaint, and the reason for only three stars, is that the book jumps around in time and spends several chapters on scientists who experimented on others rather than on themselves (and without their subjects' knowledge) and on scientists who seem not to have experimented on themselves at all. While those stories were interesting, and highlighted the bravery of those who did in fact experiment on themselves, they seemed a bit out of place given the book's title. inga recensioner | lägg till en recension
Smoking Ears and Screaming Teeth is a hilarious celebration of the great eccentrics who have performed dangerous experiments on themselves for the benefit of humankind, written with all the wit, humour and eye for the beauties of nature - and machinery and scientific equipment - that have gained Trevor Norton a cult following and critical acclaim. Many have followed the advice of the great Victorian scientist Jack Haldane to 'never experiment on an animal if a man will do' and 'never ask anyone to do anything you wouldn't do yourself.'.He and his father inhaled poisonous gasses to test the efficacy of the prototype gas mask they had invented. When breathing gasses under pressure he suffered the smoking ears and screaming teeth of the title. The stories are astonishing, disturbing or absurd - the Marquis de Sade meets Monty Python. John Hunter pioneered self-experimentation and deliberately infected himself with venereal diseases by the puss transference method and gave his name to chancre of the penis. The zoologist Frank Buckland made a concentrated effort to widen the nation's diet by personally testing everything that crossed his path, from boiled elephant's trunk to bluebottles. He published recipes for such delicacies as slug soup. Some medics deliberately contracted deadly blood diseases in the hope of finding cures. Then there was the the surgeon who got the sack and won the Nobel prize for thrusting a catheter into his own beating heart. Trevor Norton writes that self-experimentation is still a component of much scientific research. In our health and safety obsessed society, we need people who are willing to risk themselves to make life safer for us. Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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