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A. R. Ruis, Broken Hearts: The Tangled History of Cardiac Care, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Volume 70, Issue 1, January 2015, Pages 160–163, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/jru006
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Extract
In Broken Hearts, clinician-historian David Jones gives a fascinating and insightful history of the interplay between research on the causes of coronary artery disease and the development and assessment of therapeutic—especially surgical—approaches to cardiac care. This history, Jones argues, is about “the essential complexity of medical thinking” (3), and historians of medicine will recognize many familiar themes: the co-construction of knowledge between bench and bedside, the manifold dimensions of medical decision-making, and the negotiated definitions of risk, efficacy, and similarly dynamic concepts. In exploring that essential complexity, Jones deftly shows how the complex histories of now familiar medical theories and therapies, such as arterial clots and bypass surgery, reveal the far more contested and “complicated” status of seemingly unequivocal ideas and practices.
The book is divided into two parts. In part 1: “Theory and Therapy,” Jones explores the relationship between medical explanations for the proximal causes of heart attacks and the clinical methods developed to prevent or treat them. In part 2: “Complications,” he explores the uncertainty that surrounds the evaluation of efficacy and safety in cardiac therapy, focusing in particular on “heroic” surgical interventions and the risk of neuropsychiatric side effects.
