A blunder is a foolish mistake. In Medical Blunders (Robinson, £6.99,
ISBN 1 85487 259 1), Robert Youngson and Ian Schott stretch the term to include
errors made by doctors because they didn’t know what future research revealed.
Moreover, the authors begin with stories about con artists peddling bogus
treatments, not doctors. But they do get around to genuine medical blunders,
serious, ridiculous, arrogant and, in the case of Nazi experiments, nightmarish.
It’s an easy read, as much about human credulity as medicine.
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