The Book Stall Welcomes Will Linder

The Book Stall (811 Elm Street in Winnetka) is thrilled to present an evening with Will Linder, author of “A Scientific Revolution,” on Tuesday, September 20 from 6:30 to 7:30 pm. The transformation of American medicine into the science-driven discipline we know today is largely attributable to a single institution, Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and to the women and men who breathed life into it. Their stories form the center of “A Scientific Revolution,” an uplifting collection of biographical vignettes by Hopkins pathologist Ralph Hruban and writer Will Linder, both affectionate Hopkins alumni. This event is free and open to the public.

More About the Book: “A Scientific Revolution: Ten Men and Women Who Reinvented American Medicine” recounts the lives of pivotal figures who committed body and soul to advancing rigorous patient care and physician training. Today we take it for granted that our doctors base the care they provide us on science. But that hasn’t always been the case. For the longest time, medicine in the United States was mired in folk wisdom, ancient notions of bodily humors, and plain quackery. The transformation of medicine from a rough-and-ready trade, crowded with physicians who often lacked a high school education, into a science based on research and evidence was nothing short of a miracle.

“A Scientific Revolution” begins with Mary Elizabeth Garrett, who was denied a college education by the president of Johns Hopkins but later used hardball philanthropy to raise the medical school’s entry requirements and to guarantee that women would be admitted on equal terms with men. The book ends with Vivien Thomas, the grandson of a slave, who struggled against bigotry and segregation at Hopkins. He nonetheless performed countless experiments that charted the path to congenital heart defect surgery. In between, Hruban and Linder recount the lives of eight others who battled sexism, racism, and their own personal demons to shape scientific medicine.

“The Wall Street Journal” says, “Dr. Hruban and Mr. Linder’s portraits capture an inflection point in American medicine: the ambition and excitement of it, the sense of moment experience by those who were leading the revolution.”

More About the Authors: Will Linder is an Evanston-based writer and editor. He has had a long career in marketing and public relations. Will majored in history as an undergraduate and holds master’s degrees in business administration and liberal arts. He serves on the Johns Hopkins Humanities Advisory Council.

Dr. Ralph H. Hruban is Professor of Pathology and Oncology and the Baxley Professor and Director of the Department of Pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is a 1985 graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Hruban is the Director of the Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center at Johns Hopkins.