A Scientific Revolution

"The transformation of American medicine into the science-driven discipline we know today is largely attributable to a single institution, Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and to the women and men who breathed life into it. Their stories form the center of A Scientific Revolution, an uplifting collection of biographical vignettes by Hopkins pathologist Ralph Hruban and writer Will Linder. Dr. Hruban and Mr. Linder’s portraits capture an inflection point in American medicine: the ambition and excitement of it, the sense of moment experienced by those who were leading the revolution.”

 

"Ralph Hruban and Will Linder's history of medical advances through the lives of medical pioneers is a fascinating history that should be read by every American who enjoys the benefits of modern medicine. This is biological history at its best."

 

"An enthralling and honest history of the first century of scientific medicine in the form of penetrating portraits of ten pioneers. Overcoming obstacles that included addiction, deafness, rampant sexism, vicious racism and hard-shelled tradition, the ten made possible the medicine of today. Their courage and resilience are a bracing example."

"The legendary Johns Hopkins Hospital has finally found its bards; their names are Ralph Hruban and Will Linder… My prescription… is to turn the page and begin reading the sterling essays on the medical disrupters that follow. I am confident that all who do, will savor every chapter."

"The names Edison, Einstein and Pasteur stand out as inventors, trailblazers and visionaries who changed our world. But in the field of medicine, there are other names we should know. Over a century ago, these ten men and women pioneered how doctors were trained, developed techniques for modern surgery, addressed hygiene issues, and more, all while making great personal sacrifices and enduring hardship. Together, their contributions were transformative. These engaging profiles by Ralph Hruban and Will Linder show how the collective impact of these four women and six men laid the foundation for today’s rigorous standards for patient care and clinical research."

"From the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions pioneered new procedures and treatments that put patients’ health, comfort, and safety foremost. Beginning with John Shaw Billings, who witnessed firsthand the horrors of Civil War medicine and who subsequently gave hospitals their first modern design, to Vivien Thomas, a son of enslaved people, who tolerated bitter racial discrimination while pioneering new procedures in heart surgery, here are ten compelling portraits of men and women engaged in a great scientific revolution." 

 

 

“This book’s strength lies in the honesty of its storytelling. Hruban and Linder bring us into a world where institutional politics, sexism, and racism created severe barriers not only to health equity but to scientific accomplishment.”—