Perilous Encounters: Commentaries on the evolution, art and science of medicine from ancient to modern times - Softcover

Aronson, M.D. Stanley M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1449024424 ISBN 13: 9781449024420

Publisher: AuthorHouse, 2009

Synopsis

Stanley M. Aronson, M.D., the founding dean of Brown University's medical school, has been writing newspaper columns for more than a decade for two Rhode Island publications. His Medical Arts' commentaries, compiled in this volume, have graced the pages of The Rhode Island Jewish Voice & Herald with wisdom, humor and a compelling humanity. The columns take readers on a journey into the history, heroes, marvels and maladies of ancient and current medical practices, captured in engaging tales. This collection includes stories of Jewish Nobel Prize winners, Biblical and medical giants as well as notables from the Rhode Island and New York Jewish medical communities. Thus, you will read, through a medical, Jewish and universal perspective, of David and Goliath, the Biblical Miriam, the historic Lewis and Clark, Jonas Salk, Alexander Fleming, Metchnikoff, and Maimonides to name but a few, in these pages. Dr. Aronson also reflects on his own humble origins through recollections of growing up in a Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn. He then broadens the experience to an examination of exile, from the Mosaic era to the present. The commentaries are leavened with the wit and wonder of what were often "perilous" medical encounters, hence the title of this collection. It includes chapters on clinical cases in the Scriptures, the evolution of Judaic medicine, Jewish physicians, the historic development of hospitals, Diaspora and disease, and medical curiosities and customs. The author's penchant for the odd detail ("And He smote them with what?) as well as his innate curiosity ("Jonas Salk, sleuth") and questing spirit ("Lewis and Clark: The Lost Tribes of Israel") illuminate this work.

About this title

About the Author

Stanley M. Aronson, M.D., the founding dean of Brown University's medical school, came from a humble background. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., to immigrant parents, he attended a vocational high school with the hope of becoming a carpenter. During the Great Depression, however, he attended the City College of New York, and this experience changed the course of his life. Awakened to the world of science, the arts, and intellectual inquiry, he set out on a new path, that of research and scientific pursuits. He majored in mathematics and marine biology, but after the entry of the United States into World War ll, he volunteered for the U.S. Army, serving in the infantry. After the war, he changed his professional compass towards medicine, and attended medical school at New York University, under the G.I. bill. His graduate training was in the neurosciences, as resident physician and fellow at a series of New York hospitals including Bellevue, Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Mt. Sinai. In 1952, he joined the medical faculty at Columbia University. Two years later, he began a 17-year career at the State University of N.Y., Downstate Medical Center, where he conducted clinical and laboratory research in degenerative brain diseases and was the author of over 400 scientific articles and six text books. In 1970, Dr. Aronson was recruited by Brown University to found its medical school and served as its dean until 1981. He then earned a graduate degree in public health at Harvard University, continued to teach at Brown, and formed the Rhode Island's Hospice Care program. He has also worked overseas for the Rockefeller Foundation. From Brooklyn to Brown University and beyond, Dr. Aronson represents the fulfillment of the American dream, borne from the aspirations of Jewish immigrant parents.

Edition details

• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1449024424
• ISBN 13: 9781449024420
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 236