Druin Burch's controversial argument is that, for most of human history, medicine has been a catastrophe. Over the last two thousand years doctors have killed patients far more often than they saved them, and patients have colluded because they trusted them. This book is about how little and how much has changed. It is about the medical drugs of modern Europe and America, and ways we have learnt to understand them.

Burch leads us through an array of shocking and surprising medical practices Financial Times For all the wizardry of modern medicine, with its bionic limbs and targeted drugs, doctors still cannot assume they have all the answers. This book offers a valuable inoculation against complacency New Scientist Taking The Medicine is both an assault on the myths of the infallible doctor and a history of pharmacology - the search for the one, true treatment... Burch makes a compelling case Sunday Telegraph. Each chapter is a self-contained pleasure to read, like mini-fables on the perils of medicine Sunday Times Burch approaches his task with vigour and pace, exploring the therapeutic failures of doctors over the ages...there is much of interest as the story unfolds Irish Times A fascinating history of the development of clinical trials and the thinking behind them Literary Review

Druin Burch works as a hospital doctor in Oxford, and is the author of DIGGING UP THE DEAD, a biography of the Victorian surgeon Astley Paston Cooper.