Books like Better by Atul Gawande

Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi’s poignant memoir chronicles his battle with stage IV metastatic lung cancer and his reflections on life, medicine, and mortality.

In 'Complications', surgeon Atul Gawande presents true medical cases to expose both the power and the limits of modern medicine, revealing the uncertainty and humanity behind every surgical decision.

Before museums there were cabinets of medical curiosities: a dried mermaid might sit next to a giant's shinbone; the skeletons of conjoined twins beside an Egyptian mummy. In this well-illustrated book, the author uses his medical expertise to explore some of these medical freaks, outright frauds and popular myths. He debunks some as mere superstition and offers medical diagnoses for other cases. He explores such bizarre phenomena as spontaneous human combustion; snake and frog colonies living in a person's stomach; and vicious tribes of tail-bearing men. Bondeson also tells the story of Mary Toft, who gained notoriety in 1726 when she allegedly gave birth to 17 rabbits. The book also presents the tragic case of the "Ape Woman", a Mexican Indian with thick hair growing over her body and a massive overgrowth of gums, who was exhibited by her husband throughout her life, and mummified on her death in 1860.

Collects medical anecdotes such as therapies involving toads, using brandy as a cure for rabies, and cases of dangerous ice cream.