In the winter of 1950, Margaret Sanger, then seventy-one, and who had campaigned for women's right to control their own fertility for five decades, arrived at a Park Avenue apartment building. She had come to meet a visionary scientist with a dubious reputation more than twenty years her junior. His name was Gregory Pincus. In The Birth of the Pill, Jonathan Eig tells the extraordinary story of how, prompted by Sanger, and then funded by the wealthy widow and philanthropist Katharine McCormick, Pincus invented a drug that would stop women ovulating. With the support of John Rock, a charismatic and, crucially, Catholic doctor from Boston, who battled his own church in the effort to win public approval for the controversial new drug, he succeeded. Together, these four determined men and women changed the world. Spanning the years from Sanger's heady Greenwich Village days in the early twentieth century to trial tests in Puerto Rico in the 1950s to the cusp of the sexual revolution in the 1960s, this is a grand story of radical feminism, scientific ingenuity, establishment opposition, and, ultimately, a sea change in social attitudes.

Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2008, Susan Gubar underwent radical debulking surgery, an attempt to excise the cancer by removing part or all of many organs in the lower abdomen. Her memoir mines the deepest levels of anguish and devotion as she struggles to come to terms with her body 's betrayal and the frightful protocols of contemporary medicine. She finds solace in the abiding love of her husband, children, and friends while she searches for understanding in works of literature, visual art, and the testimonies of others who suffer with various forms of cancer. Ovarian cancer remains an incurable disease for most of those diagnosed, even those lucky enough to find caring and skilled physicians. Memoir of a Debulked Woman is both a polemic against the ineffectual and injurious medical responses to which thousands of women are subjected and a meditation on the gifts of companionship, art, and literature that sustain people in need.

This encyclopedia provides the first standard reference work on the lives, history and activities of Jewish women in the United States. Covering a period which extends from the arrival of the first Jewish women in North America in 1654 to the present, this two-volume set presents the most comprehensive and detailed portrait of American Jewish women ever published, and brings together for the first time the wealth of recent scholarship on this subject. Includes: * Biographical entries on over 800 individual women. * 128 topical articles on organizations such as Hadassah, the National Council of Jewish Women, Mizrachi, and the Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. * Major essays on Jewish women's participation in the movement for women's suffrage, social reform, civil rights, and the recent women's movement. * The activities of Jewish women in politics, business, education, the arts, and religion. * A readable, inviting format with over 500 large photographs. * Bibliographies at the end of each entry which include overviews of major scholarship in the field, complete citations of more general works and citations of additional bibliographical and reference sources. * The comprehensive index includes citations to every substantive discussion in the entries as well as all proper names appearing in the text, such as organizations, book, song and film titles, schools, and individuals. The "Encyclopedia" provides information on American Jewish women in all fields of endeavor, and pays special attention to the work of women in the arts, academics, law, the labor movement, education, science, medicine, journalism and publishing, and on the lives of ordinary Jewish women during all time periods and in all regions of the United States.

“ Blood Feud rivals A Civil Action for best non-fiction book of the past twenty years.” — John Lescroart, New York Times bestselling author of Damage Procrit seemed like a biotech miracle, promising a golden age in medical care. Developed in the 1980s by Amgen and licensed to the pharmaceutical giant, Johnson & Johnson, the drug (AKA Epogen and Aranesp) soon generated billions in annual revenue—and still does. In 2012, world famous cyclist, Olympian, and Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong was banned from professional cycling on doping charges for using EPO (the blanket name for the drugs Procrit and Epogen), resulting in a global controversy about abuse, big pharmaceutical companies, and the lies and inaccuracies concerning performance-enhancing drugs. Mark Duxbury was a J&J salesman who once believed in the blood-booster, setting record sales and winning company awards. Then Duxbury started to learn unsavory truths about Procrit and J&J’s business practices. He was fired and filed a whistleblower suit to warn the public. When Jan Schlichtman ( A Civil Action ) learned of Duxbury’s crusade, he signed on. Now, he’s fighting on behalf of cancer patients and for every American who trusts Big Pharma with his life.

Maimonides: A Biography is a comprehensive account of the life and work of one of the most important figures in Jewish history, Moses Maimonides. Written by Solomon Zeitlin, a renowned scholar of Jewish studies, this book offers a detailed exploration of Maimonides' life, from his birth in Muslim Spain in 1135 to his death in Egypt in 1204.The book begins with an overview of the historical and cultural context in which Maimonides lived, including the rise of Islam, the Reconquista, and the flourishing of Jewish scholarship in Spain. It then delves into Maimonides' early life and education, his family background, and his intellectual development.Zeitlin examines Maimonides' major works, including his commentary on the Mishnah, the Guide for the Perplexed, and the Mishneh Torah, and explores the impact of these works on Jewish thought and practice. He also looks at Maimonides' role as a physician and his contributions to the field of medicine.Throughout the book, Zeitlin provides insights into Maimonides' personality, beliefs, and relationships with other scholars and leaders of his time. He also highlights the challenges that Maimonides faced as a Jew living in a Muslim-dominated society, including persecution and forced conversion.Maimonides: A Biography is a fascinating and engaging read for anyone interested in Jewish history, philosophy, and culture. It offers a nuanced and insightful portrait of one of the most influential figures in Jewish intellectual history.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

The man in the street would not, perhaps, recognize all the names of the brilliant scientists whose careers and personalities animate this book, but doctors know them. Morgan, who founded the first medical school in American and, fighting beside Washington, was ruined b the petty politics of the Revolution; McDowell, who, although on the fringe of the wilderness, dared the operation that prepared the way for all abdominal surgery; Rush, the equivocal personality who, for better or worse, dominated American medicine for more than fifty years; Beaumont, who, saving a life, won a living laboratory; Drake, who brought modern medicine to the New West; Long and Morton, who banished pain from surgery and earned it for themselves these men are honored in their profession today.

Public Hostage, Public Ransom starts with the autobiographical story of William Bronston, the activist physician whose early professional California training steels him with a deep moral, professional and cultural bond to the huge 6000 person disabled population he encounters incarcerated in Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, NY, on whose behalf he daily battles to humanize and ultimately catalyze a Federal Class Action Lawsuit against the state to close the deathmaking institution. Prior to the expose of Willowbrook, no small individualized community living arrangements existed across New York state in lieu of 30 massive state institutions. Medicaid funded, these institutions warehoused the 'different' population imposed on their stricken families. Having been closed to admission by public scandal and impossible overcrowding, families were blackmailed to have their dependent member submit to secret viral research whose impact was completely unknown, where rampant disease, gruesome sanitation, lack of adequate food, clothing, carloads of tranquilizing medicine and the most minimal care and supervision was the brutal norm. Ultimately, concerned parents, caring workers, top child development leaders in the field, local and national media were organized to expose and address the bureaucratic evil and ubiquitous violence that dominated the wretched lives inside. This passionate book documents the immense drama, and story arc, of the public mobilization, media expose and Federal judicial process Bronston helped arouse, that forged the path to what ultimately becomes the legal conviction for this systemic human abuse and Justice Ruth Ginsburg's subsequent, monumental Supreme Court Olmstead Decision that framed the rightful foundation for nationwide deinstitutional reform. Dr. Bronston draws the clear line to indict the self serving State bureaucracy and the strategic rationale to end Title 19 of the Social Security Act, the Medicaid system, in order to heal the deep societal wound that the nursing home and assisted living industry, the segregated norm, that compels our universal commoditized and paradigmatic terminus. The human rights movement in America has transformed the lives of all people with special needs as new politics, technology and a profound awareness of the dehumanization of this vast community reached a zenith in the late 1960s and 1970s. It leads to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act that emancipated the devalued and stigmatized populations of labeled people including Mental Retardation, Cerebral palsy, Autism, Epilepsy, Polio, sensory loss, neuromuscular degenerative conditions, on and on, "public hostages", who now age to become society's elders consigned again to profit driven, segregated and congregate institutional lives, funded by Medicaid's billions, America's "public ransom". _ us an artificially created domestic refugee population, torn from every community and devastating America's families has become an accepted paradigm that Dr. Bronston's story intimately charts and passionately indicts. Universal expanded and improved Medicare for all, single payer health care, is the clear solution and ultimate antidote to this crime against humanity we numbly tolerate.

Hermann Joseph Muller (1890-1967) was a member of the early genetics group at Columbia University that developed the chromosome theory of inheritance. T. H. Morgan received the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for this work in 1934, and Muller, his student, received the Nobel Prize in 1946 for his discovery of radiation-induced mutation. Muller's writings extended beyond contributions to technical journals. He was an active critic of social abuse of science; he advocated eugenic programs based on free choice; and he played a major role in the reform of high school biology. Muller's social views were published in magazines and journals which are accessible to scholars more than to the lay reader or student. They have been collected here to show how extensively he thought our lives are affected by radiation, evolution, modern medicine, and gene theory. He attempted to alert humanity to the dangers of neglect and abuse of their genetic heritage. He also used humanistic values to urge mankind to improve itself, to foster cooperativeness, to increase health and intelligence, and to adopt and evolutionary outlook. A companion collection of essays, The Modern Concept of Nature: Essays on Theoretical Biology by H. J. Muller, also published by State University of New York Press, deals with Muller's scientific contributions to genetics and evolution. It was Muller who developed the relation between genes and mutation; his views on the primacy of the gene in biology are reflected today in the similar primacy of nucleic acids as the basis of life. For students of the history of ideas, a collection of these essays would illustrate how genetic thinking prepared the world view for molecular biologists. The relation of science to values is often neglected because of the inaccessibility of the written contributions of famous scientists. To read Muller's major essays in these two areas is an important way to evaluate a scientist's career, his maturation of ideas, and his developing application of science to society.

"Here is a singular story of survival, an earthly miracle wrought by family devotion, gardens, horses, guts. A compelling read."—Carolyn Heilbrun In July 1998, when Maxine Kumin's horse bolted at a carriage-driving clinic, she was not expected to live. Yet, less than a year later, her progress pronounced a miracle by her doctors, she was at work on this journal of her astonishing recovery. She tells of her time "inside the halo," the near-medieval device that kept her head immobile during weeks of intensive care and rehabilitation, of the lasting "rehab" friendships, and of the loving family who always believed she would heal. "[S]he resonates wisdom while announcing a triumph of body and soul."—Anne Roiphe, New York Times Book Review "Maxine Kumin brings the sensitivity and imagination of a poet to her extraordinary ordeal."—Richard Selzer, author of Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery "From a singular experience she has created a lesson that is universal, which, it seems to me, is the essence of being a poet."—Abraham Verghese, author of The Tennis Partner

Wilhelm Stekel was a pioneering psychoanalyst whose prodigious intuition and medical skill, permitted him to compile, study, and interpret the case histories of thousands of patients. He was in a hurry: Cataclysmic World War II events were besetting him, and a grave illness he well understood was hewing at his gaunt, proud figure. Calmly, but with intense speed, he prepared his record, the culmination of which can be seen within this text. Diligently organised and reproduced by Emil A. Gutheil, this fascinating autobiography of the seminal Austrian psychologist is a must-read for anyone interested in the development of psychoanalysis. Chapters include: "Childhood", "University Days", "Practising Medicine", "Introduction to Freud and Psychoanalysis", "The Break with Freud", "Practising Psychoanalysis", "A Trip to America", "Travel on The Continent", etcetera. Wilhelm Stekel (1868 - 1940) was an Austrian psychologist and physician. He was an early follower of the seminal Sigmund Freud, often described as Freud's most distinguished pupil and commonly hailed as one of the founding fathers of modern psychoanalytical methodology. Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.