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The book "Medicine: The Definitive Illustrated History", by Steve Parker, is a nice trip through the history of this challenging profession and its daring practitioners, who are expected to, as quoted in its introduction, "cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always..."

Pictures help us understand the thoughts and beliefs of each era or time. Traditions, which have changed- sometimes more, sometimes less.

By following its pages, one can see that the evolution of Medicine has been made possible by a mixture of factors, from chance to hard work, even with advances, which came in parallel with war…

The book is an interesting gateway for all of us who believe that, to advance to the future, we must look at the past and learn with it. As said by Isaac Newton, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. Our predecessors from all eras have paved the roads to today, and this book is also a tribute to all of them, who have contributed to the Medicine we know.

 

Andrea de Lorenzo

University Hospital Clementino Fraga Filho, Postgraduate program, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro,  National Institute of Cardiology, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Peer-review: Internal

Conflict of interest: None to declare

Authorship: A.L.

                    Acknowledgement and funding: None to declare