Dr Patrick Treacy releases new book entitled 'The Living History of Medicine’

Dr Patrick Treacy has released a new book charting the history and advancement of medicine, entitled 'The Living History of Medicine'. 

The leading aesthetic practitioner who was awarded ‘Top Aesthetic Practitioner in the World’ in 2019, has already written several books, including ‘The Evolution of Aesthetic Medicine’, which examines the rise and exponential growth of his specialty. 

In the new book, Dr. Treacy shines a spotlight on the human side of medical advancements, taking the reader on a journey with the father of modern medicine, William Osler’s famed ‘Goddess of Medicine’. The text explains how ‘she’ is continually on the move, fleeing from battles, tyranny, and oppression, seeking to find a home where Man can study pathology in peace. 

Covering multiple centuries of history, the book details the development of new technologies in the fight against the diseases of the new millennium, across world cities such as Edinburgh, Dublin, London, Vienna, Berlin, Maryland, and California. 

It also contains details of fellow Fermanagh surgeon Denis Burkitt who is known for his pioneering work in identifying a form of cancer that primarily affects children in certain regions of Africa. Like Dr. Treacy, he spent some time on humanitarian missions to Uganda and, while there, first described the disease in 1958 that became known as Burkitt's lymphoma.

''The history of medicine is a living one and involves much more than reflecting on the battles that have been won or lost in the ever-changing struggle against disease,” says Dr Treacy. “The living history really lies within man himself and too often the human side of this story is neglected.”

“As doctors, we have been trained to focus on the signs of disease and consequently, we pay little attention to the people who discovered them. When we read in our pathology texts about the interesting triad of defects in an illness such as Hand-Schuller-Christian disease, we tend to forget about the doctors who faced great personal hardships to bring us the medical eponyms and more importantly, the information we now use to treat the disorder.” 

‘The Living History of Medicine’ is available from Amazon and Austin McCauley websites from July 21, 2023.