Gout, The: A Medical Microcosm In A Changing World. This item is unavailable.Gout, The: A Medical Microcosm In A Changing World

The Gout has always been a complex metaphor, positively conjuring up success and wealth but negatively implying overindulgence and waste. Regardless of its slant, the metaphor always comes first; the condition plays second fiddle. Scientific advancements over some three hundred and fifty years have eventually condensed the broad concept of "the Gout" into a well-understood disease. The book traces how this process enabled an eventual transition from ineffective to effective therapies, addresses the age-old nature versus nurture conundrum of susceptibility, and considers how ordinary people would have been (mis)informed by doctors, scientists, newspapers, and advertisements. With our modern understanding and solutions, gout should be uncommon today; paradoxically, it is enjoying a renaissance. Now, it is the outcome of poor as well as rich living due to the ill health created by the corporate global economy – a close cousin of obesity, type II diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. Investigating "the Gout" provides a microcosm not only of our social and medical history, but of our present and rapidly changing world.

 

Dorian Haskard is a professor of cardiovascular medicine and rheumatology at Imperial College London. He took a winding path into medicine, with interests including geology, physiology and psychology. After undergraduate years at the University of Oxford, he trained as a doctor at the Middlesex, Royal London and Guy's Hospitals in London and spent two years studying at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. Having qualified as a physician, he practised for many years as a consultant rheumatologist at the Hammersmith Hospital in London. In parallel, he has pursued an academic career researching the cell and molecular bases of heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular problems in rheumatic diseases. He advocates a holistic approach to health and the importance of multidisciplinary teamwork in clinical medicine and medical research. To this end, he initiated the popular Imperial College Science in Medicine School Team Prize in its fifth year in 2025. He is a British Heart Foundation Emeritus Professor and a fellow of the Linnean Society of London, the Royal College of Physicians and the UK Academy of Medical Sciences. His pastimes include gardening and thinking about connectivity in the environment.