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by Nortin M. Hadler, 313 pp, $29.95, ISBN 0-7735-2795-8, Montreal, Quebec, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004.

JAMA. 2004;292:3035-3036.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Nortin Hadler, MD, is a philosopher as well as a consummate physician. His books shatter preconceived ideas and are often iconoclastic. But like a veteran umpire, he calls ‘em as he sees them. Much of what modern medicine advocates bears scrutiny, and Hadler examines it critically and marshals facts to support his views. The Last Well Person, written for the patient, or the person who thinks of becoming one, is must reading for the public and for physicians.

Many years ago at Cornell Medical College, I taught an elective honors course entitled "The Humours," dealing with procedures and concepts that had been relegated to the proverbial dustbin. The concept of phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric, and melancholic humours, thought to course through the system and, where concentrated, create disease, had therapeutic consequences such as bleeding and purging and isolation in noisome wards for mental derangements. Most archaic treatments have disappeared, but . . . [Full Text of this Article]

George E. Ehrlich, MD, Reviewer
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia
ge2@mindspring.com

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