Free summaries
Health & Medicine — page 6
489 public-domain health & medicine books, summarised. Page 6 of 11.
Foods
Susanna Cocroft
Susanna Cocroft frames physical vitality as a personal duty, arguing that a clear understanding of digestives and food chemistry grants complete control over human health.
The New Glutton or Epicure
Horace Fletcher
Natural health is a matter of chemistry, not willpower, and the path to physical vitality begins entirely within the mechanics of the human mouth. By mastering the simple act of chewing, one can unlock a more efficient and energetic way of living.
Sanitary Statistics of Native Colonial Schools and Hospitals
Florence Nightingale
Statisticians often collect volumes of data without ever asking what the numbers are meant to save; this treatise insists that counting the sick is useless unless it halts their dying.
Principles of Public Health: A Simple Text Book on Hygiene, Presenting the Principles Fundamental to the Conservation of Individual and Community Health
Thomas Dyer Tuttle
Good health is presented as a deliberate, national ambition, achievable through the rigorous application of modern preventive science, personal hygiene, and a relentless commitment to cleanliness in every aspect of daily life.
Zone therapy
Wm. H. (William Henry Hope) Fitzgerald
A simple squeeze of the fingers or a press of an aluminum comb against the skin can supposedly halt severe pain, cure obstinate ailments, and unlock the body's hidden electrical network.
Influenza
Warren T. (Warren Taylor) Vaughan
A global plague strikes suddenly, baffling the medical establishment, exposing the limits of public health, and forcing scientists to search the past to understand a devastating present.
Studies on Epidemic Influenza: Comprising Clinical and Laboratory Investigations
University of Pittsburgh. School of Medicine
A deadly respiratory contagion sweeps through a world unprepared for its speed, leaving medical experts scrambling to understand its transmission and mortality.
Observations on the Causes, Symptoms, and Nature of Scrofula or King's Evil, Scurvy, and Cancer: With Cases Illustrative of a Peculiar Mode of Treatment
John Kent
A nineteenth-century medical tract combines stern diagnoses with rustic remedies, promising relief from deep-seated bodily afflictions through botanical treatments and plain sense.
The Surgery of the Skull and Brain
Louis Bathe Rawling
Precision engineering meets human frailty at the edge of the surgical blade. Early neurosurgery demanded rigorous anatomical knowledge, calm hands, and a willingness to confront massive diagnostic uncertainty.
Cases of Organic Diseases of the Heart
John Collins Warren
The persistent struggle for breath and the strange, haunting illusions of the dying reveal how internal physical decay reshapes the human experience. This clinical record documents the quiet, inexorable progression of heart disease long before modern cardiology.
The Natural Cure of Consumption, Constipation, Bright's Disease, Neuralgia, Rheumatism, "Colds" (Fevers), Etc.: How Sickness Originates, and How to Prevent It. A Health Manual for the People
C. E. (Charles Edward) Page
This manual offers a rigorous, uncompromising argument for reclaiming health through dietary reform, fresh air, and the rejection of medicinal reliance. It serves as a fervent manifesto for those seeking to cure chronic illness.
Veterinary Medicines, Their Actions, Uses and Dose
George Franklyn Korinek
This clinical guide serves as a foundational reference for the early 20th-century practitioner, meticulously cataloging the substances and pharmacological strategies required to treat domestic animals. It remains an essential artifact for understanding the evolution of veterinary therapeutics.
Midwifery and the diseases of women
Joel Shew
This practical manual serves as a nineteenth-century guide to women’s health, arguing that hydropathy—the systematic use of water, diet, and exercise—offers a superior alternative to the era’s often-dangerous medical interventions.
Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured
Cluthe Rupture Institute
This instructional manual advocates for the use of a specialized medical device to treat hernias, positioning it as a superior alternative to surgery and traditional, store-bought trusses. It serves as both a detailed product guide and a robust argument for a specific mechanical approach to physical recovery.
Clinical Investigations on Squint
C. Schweigger
Strabismus is more than a mere visual misalignment; it is a complex physiological puzzle that demands a rigorous departure from dogma in favor of empirical observation.
Fissure of the Anus and Fistula in Ano
Adler, Lewis H., Jr.
A sharp focus on localized rectal anatomy unlocks efficient diagnostic paths for two pervasive, agonizing, yet routinely neglected human ailments.
Health: How to get it and keep it.: The hygiene of dress, food, exercise, rest, bathing, breathing, and ventilation
Walter V. Woods
Proper care of the human body requires no expensive machinery, only thoughtful self-observation, fresh air, plain food, and systematic daily movement.
The physiology of digestion considered with relation to the principles of dietetics
Andrew Combe
Ignoring the laws of biological nature forfeits human health, strength, and liberty. This nineteenth-century medical study grounds proper dietetics and everyday living in the mechanical and chemical mechanics of bodily organs.
Encyclopedia of Diet: A Treatise on the Food Question, Vol. 2
Eugene Christian
A pragmatic, early-twentieth-century guide to human nutrition argues that most common physical ailments are not random afflictions to be suppressed with pharmaceutical poisons, but direct consequences of improper fuel entering the digestive apparatus.
Health Through Will Power
James J. (James Joseph) Walsh
A disciplined Mind can command an ailing body, transforming physical frailty into vital energy through deliberate practice and focused action.
Neuralgia and the diseases that resemble it
Francis Edmund Anstie
A specialized nervous disorder causes excruciating, localized pain without structural decay, demanding precise medical separation from its many deceptive mimics to ensure proper care.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 68, June, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
A mid-century monthly opens its leaves to reveal a nation wrestling with its own soul, where domestic practicalities, literary ambitions, and the shadows of a bleeding Union collide.
The maternal management of children, in health and disease
Thomas Bull
A mother’s steady, vigilant care is framed as the ultimate defense against childhood illness in this authoritative nineteenth-century guide to domestic hygiene and pediatric care.
Arteriosclerosis and Hypertension, with Chapters on Blood Pressure: 3rd Edition
Louis M. (Louis Marshall) Warfield
This clinical text serves as a practitioner’s guide to the diagnosis and management of circulatory degeneration, emphasizing the essential, often overlooked connection between arterial health and blood pressure regulation.
The Story of Germ Life
H. W. (Herbert William) Conn
Bacteria are frequently feared as invisible harbingers of sickness, yet they are also the essential, industrious architects of the natural world. This comprehensive overview reveals how these microscopic organisms sustain the very life they occasionally threaten.
Man's supreme inheritance
F. Matthias (Frederick Matthias) Alexander
The physical and mental struggles of modern life are not inevitable, but rather the result of a reliance on faulty subconscious habits that can be unlearned through conscious guidance and control.
The Compleat Surgeon
M. (Charles Gabriel) Le Clerc
This manual serves as a comprehensive guide for the seventeenth-century practitioner, distilling the complexities of surgical science into a portable, accessible reference. It navigates the foundational anatomy of the human body and the practical application of clinical treatments.
Jaundice: Its Pathology and Treatment: With the Application of Physiological Chemistry to the Detection and Treatment of Diseases of the Liver and Pancreas
George Harley
The yellow tint of the skin is not merely a cosmetic concern, but a complex chemical signal from the liver and pancreas, demanding precise diagnostic investigation.
The Barb and the Bridle: A Handbook of Equitation for Ladies, and Manual of Instruction in the Science of Riding, from the Preparatory Suppling Exercises
Henderson, Robert, active 1866-1874
This manual offers a disciplined, Victorian-era guide for women seeking to master the art of equitation, blending strict technical instruction with a robust defense of riding as both a physical accomplishment and a vital skill.
Whole Body Counters
John H. Woodburn
Whole body counters are specialized, heavily shielded instruments that detect the minute amounts of radioactivity present in every human, providing a unique window into our internal chemistry. This booklet explores the science of these detectors, tracing their evolution from industrial curiosity to vital medical…
A Guide to the Virginia Springs: Giving, in addition to the routes and distances, a description of the springs and also of the natural curiosities of the state
J. J. (John Jennings) Moorman
This practical mid-nineteenth-century handbook offers travelers a detailed navigational and medicinal survey of Virginia’s famed mineral springs, mapping both the geography of the landscape and the therapeutic promises of its waters.
Medical Jurisprudence, Volume 2 (of 3)
John Ayrton Paris
This comprehensive guide serves as a rigorous bridge between medical science and the courtroom, defining the physical realities of death to ensure justice prevails in criminal trials. It functions as a meticulous manual for the forensic investigator, grounding legal inquiry in the observable truths of the human body.
Radioisotopes in Medicine
Earl W. Phelan
Nuclear energy is playing a vital role in the life of every man, woman, and child in the United States today. In the years ahead, it will affect increasingly all the peoples of the earth.
Sleep and Its Derangements
William A. (William Alexander) Hammond
HOOK A pioneering exploration of the brain's nightly rhythms, this nineteenth-century medical text demystifies the biological mechanics of slumber, dreams, and the dangerous consequences of depriving the mind of its necessary rest.
Medical investigation in seventeenth century England
Charles W. Bodemer
In a century split between ancient scholastic logic and modern observation, natural philosophers struggled to understand how living bodies develop and how remedies actually heal human illness.
An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism: With a Series of Curious and Interesting Experiments Performed Before the Commissioners of the French National Institute, and Repeated Lately in the Anatomical Theatres of London
Giovanni Aldini
This chronicle of early electrical research documents the scientific pursuit to harness the vital spark, bridging the gap between cold physics and the mysteries of the living body. It remains a fascinating artifact of the Enlightenment’s relentless desire to probe the boundaries of life and death through…
Researches Chemical and Philosophical
Davy, Humphry, Sir
A rigorous, hands-on account of pneumatic chemistry captures the exact moment when laboratory precision transforms a mysterious gas into a subject of physical, physiological, and personal discovery.
Disturbances of the Heart: Discussion of the Treatment of the Heart in Its Various Disorders, With a Chapter on Blood Pressure
Oliver T. (Oliver Thomas) Osborne
A medical guide for the early 20th-century practitioner, this text offers a systematic, pragmatic approach to managing cardiac distress, prioritizing clinical observation and conservative therapy for the ailing heart.
Extraction of the Teeth
Frank Colyer
This manual serves as a definitive guide for the late-Victorian dental surgeon, navigating the delicate transition from crude tooth-pulling to the refined, antiseptic standards of modern clinical practice. It offers a structured approach to the surgical removal of teeth, emphasizing technical precision and patient…
An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis: or Ulceration Induced by Carbonaceous Accumulation in the Lungs of Coal Miners
Archibald Makellar
The air within a Scottish coal mine is a silent killer, turning the lungs of workers into vessels of black, carbonaceous sludge. This sober medical report exposes the fatal reality of occupational lung disease in the nineteenth century.
In Mesopotamia
Maurice Nicoll
HOOK A physician chronicles the brutal, sweltering reality of medical service in the Mesopotamian campaign, where the greatest enemies are not bullets, but heat, thirst, and the fraying of the human spirit.
Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 4: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Benjamin Rush
An urgent chronicle of yellow fever in post-Revolutionary Philadelphia, this volume documents the struggle of early American medicine to understand, treat, and ultimately survive the recurring pestilence that haunted the young nation’s capital.
Some Medical Aspects of Old Age: Being the Linacre lecture, 1922, St. John's college, Cambridge
Rolleston, Humphry Davy, Sir
This scholarly exploration of the twilight of human life examines the intersection of biology, medicine, and history to distinguish between the natural processes of aging and the onset of disease.
The People's Idea of God: Its Effect On Health And Christianity
Mary Baker Eddy
This sermon explores the profound link between how humanity defines the Divine and the resulting quality of human health, character, and spiritual liberty.
The Tuberculosis Nurse: Her Function and Her Qualifications: A Handbook for Practical Workers in the Tuberculosis Campaign
Ellen N. (Ellen Newbold) La Motte
Public health nursing is a demanding, systematic campaign to bring order to the chaos of infectious disease. This handbook serves as a professional blueprint for organizing effective community interventions against tuberculosis.
As a Matter of Course
Annie Payson Call
The pursuit of a calm, purposeful existence often founders not on great tragedies, but on the accumulation of minor, self-imposed irritations that clutter the mind and exhaust the nervous system.
Introductory notes on lying-in institutions
Florence Nightingale
When specialized lying-in wards trigger fatal disease outbreaks rather than safety, a critical inquiry reveals that improper hospital design and management endanger the very mothers and infants they were built to protect.
Overweight and Underweight
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
Weight management is not a matter of rapid magic or moral failure, but a lifetime accounting of energy, habit, and medical common sense.