webpage updated 2/29/2012

Author(s)

Jarcho Saul

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Edition

Original Ed 2000

Krieger #

Pages

ISBN #

Cloth/Paper

U.S. Dollars

231449

944

1-57524-144-7

C

$145

Description

Reviews

In every century, certain men stand out because of their accomplishments and their attention to detail in a specialized field. Such a man is Dr. Saul Jarcho, who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, took an M.A. from Columbia University, and entered Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons where he obtained an M.D. degree. Interested in history from an early age, Dr. Jarcho has devoted his efforts to the History of Medicine Association and as a Fellow of The New York Academy of Medicine. He is the recognized author of several books and innumerable articles on the history of medicine. Because of Dr. Jarcho's illustrious background and specialized knowledge, The New York Academy of Medicine has joined with Krieger Publishing Company to publish his complete investigative history of Francesco Torti, best known for his 1712 book, published in Italy, which discussed the use of cinchona bark to cure malaria. Torti gathered together over 300 consultation letters to patients who themselves had written for diagnosis and therapeutic advice after describing their symptoms. These reports were not published in the original 1712 edition much less in an English translation. Now, thanks to Dr. Jarcho's skill and experience as a clinical historian and translator, these unique records of the medical practices of the leading Italian clinician of the first half of the 18th century are available for historians and physicians in the 21st century.

"… Jarcho has produced yet another rich volume…a fascinating source" -- David Gentilcore, ISIS, 92:2 (2001)

"Jarcho has provided a helpful introduction to a valuable window into early modern social and medical life in Italy.  It will remain as a longstanding monument to his memory." -- Christopher Lawrence, Medical History, 2002: 46/1

"In sum, Torti's consultations provide another valuable window into eighteenth-century clinical management, and we must gratefully acknowledge the scholarship and dedication of the late Saul Jarcho who furnished us with lucid and readable texts." -- Guenter B. Risse, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2002/75

"The historian of pharmacy and medicine should not miss Jarcho's 19-page introductory summary (Chapter I): but the historian with specific interests in diseases, in diagnosis, therapeutics, materia medica, and such, should conscientiously (and with considerable hope of hitting pay dirt) pore though the whole volume." -- David L. Cowen, Pharmacy in History, Vol. 42, Nos. 3 & 4, 2000