A Scientific Revolution: Ten Men and Women Who Reinvented American Medicine

Hruban (pathology and oncology, Johns Hopkins Univ. Sch. of Medicine) and writer/editor Linder have transformed a series of lectures given online during COVID by Dr. Hruban into a book that celebrates 10 noteworthy people in the history of Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine. The book is a collection of short biographies, based on information from secondary sources as well as autobiographies, with an emphasis on the contributions of the person to the history of medicine during the time they were affiliated with Johns Hopkins. The subjects range from Mary Elizabeth Garrett, a railroad heiress who gave money to start the medical school as long as women were admitted, to Dr. William Osler, the first physician-in-chief at the new Johns Hopkins Hospital. The book also includes Dr. Dorothy Reed Mendenhall, whose cancer research confirmed the cells involved in Hodgkins disease, but was denied a faculty position at Johns Hopkins by Dr. William Welsh, another subject presented in this book. There is some mention of the structural racism and sexism that existed at Johns Hopkins through the historical periods covered.