The distillation of a vast quantity of historical material into a tolerably readable concentrate is a considerable skill, the historian's equivalent of good popular science, and the late Professor Porter manifestly had that skill. To produce a history of medicine, little more than 150 pages long, that is not a completely arid list of names is a considerable feat, though not one that calls for deep originality of thought, which was never the strong point of Porter's large, indeed manically enormous, oeuvre.

Blackwell Bookshop

Purchase your copy here, 10% off RRP