Author: Scott H. Podolsky
Pneumonia - Osler's "Captain of the Men of Death" and still the leading infectious cause of death in the United States - has until now received scant attention from historians. In Pneumonia Before Antibiotics, clinician-historian Scott H. Podolsky uses pneumonia's enduring prevalence and its centrality to the medical profession's therapeutic self-identity to examine the evolution of therapeutics in
twentieth-century America. Focusing largely on the treatment of pneumonia in first half of the century with type-specific serotherapy, Podolsky provides insight into the rise and clinical evaluation of therapeutic "specifics, " the
contested domains of private practice and public health, and-as…
