Medical Mysteries & Thrilling Histories

Updated June 7, 2026
Rochester Public Library RPL Staff
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Medical Mysteries & Thrilling Histories

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Dr. Mu?tter's marvels : a true tale of intrigue and innovation at the dawn of modern medicine
Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe
Paper Book
Thomas Mu tter was an audacious medical innovator who pioneered the use of ether as anaesthesia, the sterilisation of surgical tools and a compassion-based vision for helping the severely deformed, which clashed with the sentiments of the mid-nineteenth century. Brilliant, outspoken and handsome,...
The lady's handbook for her mysterious illness : a memoir
Ramey, Sarah
Paper Book
"A best memoir of 2020" --BookPage The darkly funny memoir of Sarah Ramey's years-long battle with a mysterious illness that doctors thought was all in her head--but wasn't. A revelation and an inspiration for millions of women whose legitimate health complaints are...
The facemaker : a visionary surgeon's battle to mend the disfigured soldiers of World War I
Fitzharris, Lindsey
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the 2022 Kirkus Prize | Named a best book of the year by The Guardian "Enthralling. Harrowing. Heartbreaking. And utterly redemptive. Lindsey Fitzharris hit this one out of the park." --Erik Larson, author of...
Replaceable you : adventures in human anatomy
Roach, Mary
Ebook
One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 A Goodreads Readers' Most Anticipated Fall Book From the New York Times bestselling author of Stiff and Fuzz, a rollicking exploration of the quest to re-create the impossible complexities of human...
Destiny of the Republic A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
Millard, Candice.
Ebook
The inspiration for the Netflix series Death by Lightning - now streaming! * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The extraordinary account of James Garfield's rise from poverty to the American presidency, and the dramatic history of his assassination and legacy, from the bestselling author...
The invisible kingdom : reimagining chronic illness
O'Rourke, Meghan
Paper Book
Drawing on her own medical experience as well as fifteen years of interviews with doctors, patients, researchers, and public health experts, O'Rourke's incisive new work speaks to an urgent subject: the epidemic scale of autoimmune disease in America (even greater with the advent of 'Long Covid')...
Empire of pain : the secret history of the Sackler dynasty
Keefe, Patrick Radden
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR * A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. From...
The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Skloot, Rebecca
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The story of modern medicine and bioethics--and, indeed, race relations--is refracted beautifully, and movingly."--Entertainment Weekly NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE * ONE OF THE "MOST...
0101814072159
614.58 P926H
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The bestselling landmark account of the first emergence of the Ebola virus. * "This work of nonfiction is more terrifying than any sci-fi nightmare." --USA TODAY Also a mini-series drama starring Julianna Margulies, Topher Grace, Liam...
The emperor of all maladies : a biography of cancer
Mukherjee, Siddhartha
Paper Book
Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, adapted as a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is "an extraordinary achievement" (The New Yorker)--a magnificent,...
Stiff : the curious lives of human cadavers
Roach, Mary.
Paper Book
Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers--some willingly, some unwittingly--have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines,...
Hidden Valley Road : inside the mind of an American family
Kolker, Robert
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * ONE OF GQ's TOP 50 BOOKS OF LITERARY JOURNALISM IN THE 21st CENTURY * The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in...
Five days at Memorial : life and death in a storm-ravaged hospital
Fink, Sheri
Paper Book
One of the New York Times's Best Ten Books of the Year Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Winner of the 2014 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize,...
Bad blood : secrets and lies in a Silicon Valley startup
Carreyrou, John
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The gripping story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos--one of the biggest corporate frauds in history--a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley, rigorously reported by the prize-winning journalist. With a new Afterword.
All in her head : the truth and lies early medicine taught us about women's bodies and why it matters today
Comen, Elizabeth
Audiobook
The man who mistook his wife for a hat : and other clinical tales
Sacks, Oliver
Paper Book
In his most extraordinary book, "one of the great clinical writers of the twentieth century" (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife...
The spirit catches you and you fall down : a Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures
Fadiman, Anne
Paper Book
Now with a new Afterword from the author Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over...
Smoke gets in your eyes : and other lessons from the crematory
Doughty, Caitlin
Paper Book
Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty--a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre--took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life's work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both...
The code breaker : Jennifer Doudna, gene editing, and the future of the human race
Isaacson, Walter
Paper Book
A Best Book of 2021 by Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Time, and The Washington Post The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a "compelling" (The Washington Post) account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna...
Brain on fire : my month of madness
Cahalan, Susannah.
Paper Book
A gripping memoir and medical suspense story about a young New York Post reporter's struggle with a rare and terrifying disease, opening a new window into the fascinating world of brain science. One day in 2009, twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a...
I contain multitudes : the microbes within us and a grander view of life
Yong, Ed
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller New York Times Notable Book of 2016 * NPR Great Read of 2016 * Named a Best Book of 2016 by The Economist, Smithsonian, NPR's Science Friday, MPR, Minnesota Star Tribune, Kirkus Reviews,...
Gulp : adventures on the alimentary canal
Roach, Mary.
Paper Book
"America's funniest science writer" (Washington Post) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity...
Medical apartheid : the dark history of medical experimentation on Black Americans from colonial times to the present
Washington, Harriet A.
Paper Book
From the era of slavery to the present day, the first full history of black America’s shocking mistreatment as unwilling and unwitting experimental subjects at the hands of the medical establishment. Medical Apartheidis the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on...
The gene : an intimate history
Mukherjee, Siddhartha
Paper Book
The #1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller The basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate History From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies--a fascinating history of the gene and "a magisterial account of...
The poisoner's handbook : murder and the birth of forensic medicine in Jazz Age New York
Blum, Deborah
Paper Book
Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Deborah Blum follows New York City's first forensic scientists to discover a fascinating Jazz Age story of chemistry and detection, poison and murder. Deborah Blum, writing with the high style and skill for suspense that is characteristic of...
The ghost map : the story of London's most terrifying epidemic--and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world
Johnson, Steven
Paper Book
A thrilling account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London and a brilliant exploration of how Dr John Snow's solution revolutionised the way people think about disease, cities, science and the modern world. This is an endlessly fascinating and compelling account of the summer of 1854,...
Forensics : what bugs, burns, prints, DNA, and more tell us about crime
McDermid, Val
Paper Book
Val McDermid is one of the finest crime writers we have, whose novels have captivated millions of readers worldwide with their riveting narratives of characters who solve complex crimes and confront unimaginable evil. In the course of researching her bestselling novels McDermid has become...
The butchering art : Joseph Lister's quest to transform the grisly world of Victorian medicine
Fitzharris, Lindsey
Paper Book
Winner, 2018 PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Short-listed for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize A Top 10 Science Book of Fall 2017, Publishers Weekly A Best History Book of 2017, The Guardian "Warning: She...
The great influenza : the epic story of the deadliest plague in history
Barry, John M.
Paper Book
#1 New York Times bestseller "Barry will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history."--Bill Gates "Monumental... an authoritative and disturbing morality tale."--Chicago Tribune The...
The good nurse : a true story of medicine, madness, and murder
Graeber, Charles.
Paper Book
The mesmerizing basis of the movie starring Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain⁠--a "stunning book...that should and does bring to mind In Cold Blood"--takes you inside the mind of America's most prolific serial killer, whose 16-year long "nursing" career left as many as 400 dead....
Crisis in the red zone : the story of the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, and of the outbreaks to come
Preston, Richard
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * An urgent wake-up call about the future of emerging viruses and a gripping account of the doctors and scientists fighting to protect us, told through the story of the deadly 2013-2014 Ebola epidemic   "Crisis in the Red Zone...
Bellevue : three centuries of medicine and mayhem at America's most storied hospital
Oshinsky, David M.
Paper Book
From a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian comes a riveting history of New York's iconic public hospital that charts the turbulent rise of American medicine. Bellevue Hospital, on New York City's East Side, occupies a colorful and horrifying place in the public imagination: a den of...
Complications : a surgeon's notes on an imperfect science
Gawande, Atul.
Paper Book
National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction A brilliant and courageous doctor reveals, in gripping accounts of true cases, the power and limits of modern medicine. Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate,...
The Black Angels : the untold story of the nurses who helped cure tuberculosis.
Smilios, Maria
Ebook
New York City, 1929. A sanatorium, a deadly disease, and a dire nurse shortage. So begins the remarkable true story of the Black nurses who helped cure one of the world's deadliest plagues: tuberculosis. During those dark pre-antibiotic days, when tuberculosis killed one in seven...
Twelve patients : life and death at Bellevue Hospital
Manheimer, Eric.
Paper Book
In the spirit of Oliver Sacks and the inspiration for the NBC drama New Amsterdam, this memoir from a Medical Director of Bellevue Hospital looks poignantly at patients' lives, highlighting the complex mind-body connection. "As intensely involving as any scripted...
My lobotomy : a memoir
Dully, Howard
Paper Book
At twelve, Howard Dully was guilty of the same crimes as other boys his age: he was moody and messy, rambunctious with his brothers, contrary just to prove a point, and perpetually at odds with his parents. Yet somehow, this normal boy became one of the youngest people on whom Dr. Walter Freeman...
Do no harm : stories of life, death, and brain surgery
Marsh, Henry
Paper Book
The Instant New York Times best seller! Riveting. ... [Marsh] gives us an extraordinarily intimate, compassionate and sometimes frightening understanding of his vocation. - The New York Times Winner of the PEN Ackerley Prize Shortlisted for both the...
Sickened : the memoir of a Munchausen by proxy childhood
Gregory, Julie.
Paper Book
A young girl is perched on the cold chrome of yet another doctor’s examining table, missing yet another day of school. Just twelve, she’s tall, skinny, and weak. It’s four o’clock, and she hasn’t been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the other hand, seems...
How to survive a plague : the inside story of how citizens and science tamed AIDS
France, David
Paper Book
A New York Times 2016 Notable Book The definitive history of the successful battle to halt the AIDS epidemic--from the creator of, and inspired by, the seminal documentary How to Survive a Plague. A riveting, powerful telling of the story of the...
Every patient tells a story : medical mysteries and the art of diagnosis
Sanders, Lisa
Paper Book
This work presents an unflinching look inside the detective story that marks nearly every illness - the diagnosis - revealing the combination of uncertainty and intrigue that doctors face when confronting patients who are sick or dying.
The killer of little shepherds : a true crime story and the birth of forensic science
Starr, Douglas P.
Paper Book
A riveting true crime story that vividly recounts the birth of modern forensics. At the end of the nineteenth century, serial murderer Joseph Vacher, known and feared as “The Killer of Little Shepherds,” terrorized the French countryside. He eluded authorities for years...
Patient H.M. : a story of memory, madness and family secrets
Dittrich, Luke
Paper Book
"Oliver Sacks meets Stephen King"* in this propulsive, haunting journey into the life of the most studied human research subject of all time, the amnesic known as Patient H.M., a man who forever altered our understanding of how memory works--and whose treatment raises deeply unsettling questions...
Pox : an American history
Willrich, Michael.
Paper Book
The untold story of how America's Progressive-era war on smallpox sparked one of the great civil liberties battles of the twentieth century. At the turn of the last century, a powerful smallpox epidemic swept the United States from coast to coast. The age-old disease spread...
Genome : the autobiography of a species in 23 chapters
Ridley, Matt.
Paper Book
"Ridley leaps from chromosome to chromosome in a handy summation of our ever increasing understanding of the roles that genes play in disease, behavior, sexual differences, and even intelligence. . . . . He addresses not only the ethical quandaries faced by contemporary scientists but the...
The naked lady who stood on her head : a psychiatrist's stories of his most bizarre cases
Small, Gary W.
Paper Book
"Stories of human behavior at its most extreme....With humor, compassion, empathy, and insight, Small searches for and finds the humanity that lies hidden under even the most bizarre symptoms." --Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind A psychiatrist's stories of...
Smile : the story of a face
Ruhl, Sarah
Paper Book
* A People Best Book of the Year * Time and The Washington Post's Most Anticipated List * Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence * From the MacArthur genius, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and playwright, this "captivating, insightful...
The mystery of the exploding teeth : and other curiosities from the history of medicine
Morris, Thomas
Paper Book
"Delightfully horrifying."--Popular Science One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018 One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018 This wryly humorous collection of stories about bizarre medical treatments and cases offers a unique portrait of a bygone era in...
The family that couldn't sleep : a medical mystery
Max, D. T.
Paper Book
For two hundred years a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness...
The other Dr. Gilmer : two men, a murder, and an unlikely fight for justice
Gilmer, Benjamin
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE * A "mesmerizing" (The New York Times Book Review) true story about a shocking crime and a mysterious illness that will forever change your notions of how we punish and how we heal--an expansion on one of the most popular This American Life...
The sleeping beauties : and other stories of mystery illness
O'Sullivan, Suzanne
Paper Book
In Sweden, hundreds of refugee children fall into a state that resembles sleep for months or years at a time. In Le Roy, a town in upstate New York, teenage girls develop involuntary twitches and seizures that spread like a conta­gion. In the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, employees experience headaches and...
Hysterical : a memoir
Bassist, Elissa
Paper Book
SEMI-FINALIST FOR THE 2023 THURBER PRIZE FOR AMERICAN HUMOR *  "A fiery cultural critique." --Kirkus Reviews  *  "...a powerful, beautifully written, and utterly important book."--New York Journal of Books...
The red market : on the trail of the world's organ brokers, bone thieves, blood farmers, and child traffickers
Carney, Scott M.
Paper Book
"An unforgettable nonfiction thriller, expertly reported....A tremendously revealing and twisted ride, where life and death are now mere cold cash commodities." --Michael Largo, author of Final Exits Award-winning investigative journalist and contributing Wired...
Sick : a memoir
Khakpour, Porochista
Paper Book
A Best Book of the Year: Real Simple, Entropy, Mental Floss, Bitch Media, The Paris Reivew, and LitHub. Time Magazine's Best Memoirs of 2018 * Boston Globe's 25 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018  *  Buzzfeed's 33 Most Exciting New Books  * GQ Best...
The perfect predator : a scientist's race to save her husband from a deadly superbug: a memoir
Strathdee, Steffanie
Paper Book
A harrowing memoir of one woman's extraordinary effort to save her husband's life--and the discovery of a forgotten cure that has the potential to save millions more. Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in...
Black Death at the Golden Gate : the race to save America from the bubonic plague
Randall, David K.
Paper Book
For Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King, surviving in San Francisco meant a life in the shadows. His passing on March 6, 1900, would have been unremarkable if a city health officer hadn't noticed a swollen black lymph node on his groin--a sign of bubonic plague. Empowered by racist pseudoscience,...
The genome odyssey : medical mysteries and the incredible quest to solve them
Ashley, Euan A.
Paper Book
In The Genome Odyssey, Dr. Euan Ashley, Stanford professor of medicine and genetics, brings the breakthroughs of precision medicine to vivid life through the real diagnostic journeys of his patients and the tireless efforts of his fellow doctors and scientists as they hunt to prevent,...
Brainstorm : detective stories from the world of neurology
O'Sullivan, Suzanne.
Paper Book
A leading neurologist recounts some of her most astonishing, challenging cases, which demonstrate how central the study of epilepsy has been to our understanding of the brain.   Brainstorm follows the stories of people whose medical diagnoses are so strange even their...
Kill shot : a shadow industry, a deadly disease
Dearen, Jason
Paper Book
An award-winning investigative journalist's horrifying true crime story of America's deadliest drug contamination outbreak and the greed and deception that fueled it. Two pharmacists sit in a Boston courtroom accused of murder. The weapon: the fungus Exserohilum rostratum. The death count: 100 and...
Doctored : the disillusionment of an American physician
Jauhar, Sandeep
Paper Book
In his acclaimed memoir Intern, Sandeep Jauhar chronicled the formative years of his residency at a prestigious New York City hospital. Doctored, his New York Times bestselling harrowing follow-up, observes the crisis of American medicine through the eyes of an attending...
How we do harm : a doctor breaks ranks about being sick in America /
Brawley, Otis Webb.
Paper Book
How We Do Harm exposes the underbelly of healthcare today--the overtreatment of the rich, the under treatment of the poor, the financial conflicts of interest that determine the care that physicians' provide, insurance companies that don't demand the best (or even the least expensive) care...
Anesthesia : the gift of oblivion and the mystery of consciousness
Cole-Adams, Kate
Paper Book
"Cole-Adams blends research, reflection, and memoir to try to grapple with the meaning of consciousness . . . Cole-Adams presents a lyrical journey through the vital question of what it means to be human." --Kirkus Reviews Anesthetize: to render insensible
One doctor : close calls, cold cases, and the mysteries of medicine
Reilly, Brendan M.
Paper Book
An epic story told by a unique voice in American medicine, One Doctor describes life-changing experiences in the career of a distinguished physician. An epic story told by a unique voice in Ameri­can medicine, One Doctor describes life-changing experiences in...
The Colony
Tayman, John.
Paper Book
In the bestselling tradition of In the Heart of the Sea, The Colonyreveals the untold history of the infamous American leprosy colony on Molokai and of the extraordinary people who struggled to survive under the most horrific circumstances. In 1866, twelve men and women and one small child were...
Good blood : a doctor, a donor, and the incredible breakthrough that saved millions of babies
Guthrie, Julian
Paper Book
When James Harrison was a 14 year old boy in Australia in the 1950s, he had emergency surgery and received a transfusion, which saved his life. Even though he hated needles, James felt a debt to the unknown strangers who'd given him such a gift and vowed to return the favor. Little did he know...
Intern : a doctor's initiation
Jauhar, Sandeep
Paper Book
Intern is Sandeep Jauhar's story of his days and nights in residency at a busy hospital in New York City, a trial that led him to question our every assumption about medical care today. Residency--and especially the first year, called internship--is legendary for its brutality....
The panic virus : a true story of medicine, science, and fear
Mnookin, Seth.
Paper Book
WHO DECIDES WHICH FACTS ARE TRUE? In 1998 Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist with a history of self-promotion, published a paper with a shocking allegation: the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine might cause autism. The media seized hold of the story and, in the process, helped...
The puzzle solver : a scientist's desperate quest to cure the illness that stole his son
White, Tracie
Paper Book
"A renowned geneticist races against time to diagnose a malady that landed at his door... A complex, well-related story of medical detective work." --KIRKUS     At the age of twenty-seven, Whitney Dafoe was forced to give up his life as a photographer...
Mind wide open your brain and the neuroscience of everyday life
Johnson, Steven.
CD
BRILLIANTLY EXPLORING TODAY'S CUTTING-EDGE BRAIN RESEARCH, MIND WIDE OPEN IS AN UNPRECEDENTED JOURNEY INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN PERSONALITY, ALLOWING READERS TO UNDERSTAND THEMSELVES AND THE PEOPLE IN THEIR LIVES AS NEVER BEFORE. Using a mix of experiential reportage, personal...
The memory thief : and the secrets behind how we remember : a medical mystery
Aguirre, Lauren Seeley
Paper Book
FINALIST FOR THE 2022 PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD "Aguirre writes clearly, concisely, and often cinematically. The book succeeds in providing an accessible yet substantive look at memory science and offering glimpses of the often-challenging process of...
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