Thomas F. (hardtack) -
One area I read compulsively in is Civil War history. I've been reading such for 64 years. I also enjoy novels which take place during that period. In all those years I've read a number of books concerning the state of medicine in that war. There are only 100 pages of text in this book, with several more pages of tables. This 11 x 9 inch book is remarkable in two different areas.
First, the amount of detailed information is staggering, and this includes well over a hundred pen and pencil images of medical tools and people. Almost very single aspect of Civil War medicine you could think of is covered. There are the details of the operations concerning every area of the body; descriptions of people who made medical advances in treating soldiers or supporting those who treated them, or hindered them; pages devoted to the new concept of women as nurses; and so much more. Diseases the soldiers encountered are covered, including the ones the state of medical science at this time inflicted upon them, as also described by the book. And it ends with more detail than I have ever read on how the doctors examined Lincolns' head wound after he was shot.
The second way this book is remarkable is because some idiot at the publishing firm decided to use italicized cursive as the text, which makes it hard to read. Actually, the text isn't in cursive, but the letters are so close together it appears as cursive. Plus, that idiot, or perhaps another, decided to make the text appear in a faint ink. This requires you to read in the correct light. Finally, perhaps a third idiot arranged much of the text with paragraphs ending in the middle of a sentence on the same page requiring you to find where that sentence restarts, You are often confused into reading a caption for one of the images on the page. As such, a 100-page book which should only have taken a couple of days to read took me weeks, as reading the text was such a chore. We can only pray those idiots were fired from that publishing firm or, even better, treated with a heavy dose of mercury, as were many soldiers.
Due to the wealth of information I gave the book four stars. Without that, I would have given it 1/2 star.
First, the amount of detailed information is staggering, and this includes well over a hundred pen and pencil images of medical tools and people. Almost very single aspect of Civil War medicine you could think of is covered. There are the details of the operations concerning every area of the body; descriptions of people who made medical advances in treating soldiers or supporting those who treated them, or hindered them; pages devoted to the new concept of women as nurses; and so much more. Diseases the soldiers encountered are covered, including the ones the state of medical science at this time inflicted upon them, as also described by the book. And it ends with more detail than I have ever read on how the doctors examined Lincolns' head wound after he was shot.
The second way this book is remarkable is because some idiot at the publishing firm decided to use italicized cursive as the text, which makes it hard to read. Actually, the text isn't in cursive, but the letters are so close together it appears as cursive. Plus, that idiot, or perhaps another, decided to make the text appear in a faint ink. This requires you to read in the correct light. Finally, perhaps a third idiot arranged much of the text with paragraphs ending in the middle of a sentence on the same page requiring you to find where that sentence restarts, You are often confused into reading a caption for one of the images on the page. As such, a 100-page book which should only have taken a couple of days to read took me weeks, as reading the text was such a chore. We can only pray those idiots were fired from that publishing firm or, even better, treated with a heavy dose of mercury, as were many soldiers.
Due to the wealth of information I gave the book four stars. Without that, I would have given it 1/2 star.
