Episode 178 - Bad Medicine

For 2,400 years patients believed doctors were doing good; for 2,300 years they were wrong. Until the invention of antibiotics in the 1940s doctors, in general, did their patients more harm than good. Why do bad ideas die hard? Why do professions and professionals cling to ineffective theories and methods? Join Ed and Ron as they discuss two important books that illustrate the need for us to constantly challenge our core assumptions about the way world works: Bad Medicine: Doctors Doing Harm Since Hippocrates, by David Wootton, and The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine, by Lindsey Fitzharris.