Terrors of the table The curious history of nutrition
Gratzer recounts this history with characteristic crispness and verve. The book teems with colorful personalities, a veritable who's who of medical history, and highlights the brilliant flashes of insight as well as the sadly mistaken leaps of logic in the centuries-long effort to understand ho...
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| Language: | Undetermined English |
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Oxford,New York
Oxford University Press
2005
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| Institutions: | Trung tâm Học liệu Trường Đại học Trà Vinh |
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| Summary: | Gratzer recounts this history with characteristic crispness and verve. The book teems with colorful personalities, a veritable who's who of medical history, and highlights the brilliant flashes of insight as well as the sadly mistaken leaps of logic in the centuries-long effort to understand how the body uses food. We see the ingenious experiments used to reveal the workings of the stomach, the chemical analyses that uncovered the nature of proteins, carbohydrates, and vitamins, and the slow recognition that malnutrition lay behind such terrible diseases as scurvy, rickets, beriberi, and pellagra. Along the way, we read about the invention of the tin can (which originally had to be opened with a hammer and chisel), learn why ancient Egyptians had thicker skulls than Persians, and find out about today's fads and fancy diets--some dangerous, others just daft |
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| Physical Description: | ix, 288 p. ill. 24 cm |
| ISBN: | 0199205639 9780199205639 |