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This book is an interconnected history of the evolution of global
health in the decades before 2019, told through the prism of six
decisive moments in which individuals from the World Health
Organization (WHO), philanthropic foundations, academia and
bilateral agencies came together to shape the world. These critical
junctures are accessed via the life and work of Norwegian
immunologist Tore Godal, one of the most influential health
physicians of all time. Godal’s career over the past 50 years
offers a window into the profound events that have shaped the
health and well-being of millions across the globe, including the
first free donation of a drug for the treatment of river blindness;
the entry of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation into the global
health arena with a $750 million start-up grant for GAVI, the
Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization; the 50% reduction in
under-five mortality rates this century; the emergence of
insecticide bed nets as the cornerstone of WHO malaria control; the
rise of maternal and child health on the global political agenda;
and the connection between Ebola and the creation of the Coalition
for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) in 2017. Exploring the
ways in which the trajectory of global health has interwoven with
the rich life and legacy of Godal, this book is a crucial resource
for any reader interested in global health.
At the end of the Second World War, Britain had the highest
incidence of lung cancer in the world. For the first time lung
cancer deaths exceeded those from tuberculosis - and no one knew
why. On 30 September 1950, a young physician named Richard Doll
concluded in a research paper that smoking cigarettes was "a cause
and an important cause" of the rapidly increasing epidemic of lung
cancer. His historic and contentious finding marked the beginning
of a life-long crusade against premature death and the forces of
"Big Tobacco". Born in 1912, Doll, a natural patrician, jettisoned
his Establishment background and joined the Communist Party as a
reaction to the "anarchy and waste" of capitalism in the 1930s. He
treated the blistered feet of the Jarrow Marchers, served as a
medical officer at the retreat to Dunkirk, and became a true hero
of the NHS. A political revolutionary and an epidemiologist with a
Darwinian heart-of-stone, Doll fulfilled his early ambition to be
"a valuable member of society". Doll steered a course through a
minefield of medical and political controversy. Opponents from the
tobacco industry questioned his science, while later critics from
the environmental lobby attacked his alleged connections to the
chemical industry. An enigmatic individual, Doll was feared and
respected throughout a long and wide-ranging scientific career
which ended only with his death in 2005. In this authorised and
groundbreaking biography, Conrad Keating reveals a man whose life
and work encapsulates much of the twentieth century. Described by
the British Medical Journal as "perhaps Britain's most eminent
doctor", Doll ushered in a new era in medicine: the intellectual
ascendancy of medical statistics. According to the Nobel laureate
Sir Paul Nurse, his work, which may have prevented tens of millions
of deaths, "transcends the boundaries of professional medicine into
the global community of mankind."
The 'miracle drug' penicillin was first given intravenously to a
patient in Oxford on 12 February 1941, leading to a transformation
in the way that bacterial infection is understood and treated. What
was to become one of the greatest stories in biomedical history not
only had roots in Oxford, but was the latest in a line of pivotal
medical discoveries made in the city. This short illustrated
history chronicles the story of Oxford's contribution to science,
from its medieval origins to its present status as one of the
world's leading scientific institutions. In charting Oxford's
remarkable history, the book showcases twenty discoveries which
have shaped medical science across the centuries, with worldwide
impact. In the early seventeenth century few centres could rival
Oxford in the field of experimental medicine. William Harvey,
Thomas Willis and Thomas Sydenham all gained eponymous immortality
with their pioneering research into the circulation of the blood
and the workings of the human body. In the early twentieth century
Dorothy Hodgkin's development of x-ray crystallography earned her a
Nobel Prize and more recently, Richard Doll's work on smoking,
pioneering glucose sensors for diabetes and new treatments for
haemophilia have helped save millions of lives. Great Medical
Discoveries traces how these examples of groundbreaking and vital
work form part of a wider tapestry of medical research, from the
discovery of anaesthetics to pioneering neurosurgery, and
demonstrates how such enduring contributions to medical science
have helped to shape our lives, both locally and internationally.
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