Book Notes

Gerrit Bos. Maimonides: Medical Aphorisms Treatises 16–21. A parallel Arabic-English edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 204 pp. $89.95 (978-0-8425-2843-6).

In this fourth volume of a planned series of six, Gerrit Bos presents treatises sixteen through twenty-one of the medical aphorisms compiled by Maimonides (1138–1204), a Jewish leader, philosopher, and physician. Maimonides wrote his Aphorisms as a notebook for his own use and as a teaching text, arranging the aphorisms into twenty-five treatises and organizing them by medieval subspecialties. He drew primarily from the treatises of Galen, but he also quotes from other ancient and medieval physicians, including some whose work does not survive in any other source. The central subjects of the current volume include women’s diseases, physical exercise, bathing, food, and drugs. Maimonides also addresses unusual cases from Galen and his own criticisms of Galen’s theories, and this volume contains a botanicals index for more than 260 plants mentioned in the treatises. Bos presents the Arabic text and his English translation in parallel-column format.

Louis W. Sullivan. Breaking Ground: My Life in Medicine. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2016. 288 pp. Ill. $24.95 (978-0-8203-4938-1).

The founding dean and first president of Morehouse School of Medicine, Dr. Louis Sullivan also served as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under the George H. W. Bush administration. This autobiography describes his childhood in Jim Crow Georgia and his rise through medical school in Boston, where he was the sole African American student in his class. Sullivan details his career in Washington, the pending AIDS crisis, and his efforts to establish comprehensive health care reform, with portraits of Thurgood Marshall, Jesse Helms, and the Bush family. Now in his eighties, Sullivan has turned his attention to medical education in South Africa. Ambassador Andrew Young writes in his foreword that Sullivan’s career is notable for his commitment to the health of the neediest citizens.

The Editors