This historical study deals with all facets of the medical field in ancient Egypt. Stetter discusses the societal role doctors played and their place in the Egyptian court. There is much information on the treatment of bodies after death including embalming, entombment and the corresponding myths that accompanied them. Mundane medical treatments including dentistry are also covered. Stetter describes how the ancient Egyptians viewed the body, their ideal of health and the medicines and unusual implements they used. All the information is fully annotated and primary sources are translated and quoted. With many color photographs, this book is an insightful historical study. MM

Publisher: Quintessence
Paperback: 184 pages
Illustrated

Medical moulage is defined as “a wax reproduction of pathologic changes of the body.” While no longer the state of the art in medical education, the moulage pieces reproduced in deluxe color in Diseases in Wax, like the daguerreotype images in the Burns Archive’s Masterpieces of Medical Photography, become an ambiguously sumptuous feast of bodily decay and human misery. Author Thomas Schnalke has not only collected the finest examples of this now lost art but also put together a thoroughly researched history of the field from its earliest beginnings in 17th-century Italy, including biographies of its leading artists. With 331 color reproductions of moulages such as “Untreated tertiary syphilis of the skin and facial bones of a mountain dweller” by Carl Henning, Vienna, 1910, illustrations from such museums as the Elektropathologisches Museum (devoted strictly to electrical burns) where medical moulages can be viewed, and step-by-step demonstrations of moulaging techniques, Diseases in Wax is truly one of the great accomplishments of medical publishing. SS

Publisher: Quintessence
Hardback: 226 pages
Illustrated