Anatomy of Addiction

<p>Acclaimed medical historian Howard Markel traces the careers of two brilliant young doctors--Sigmund Freud neurologist and William Halsted surgeon--showing how their powerful addictions to cocaine shaped their enormous contributions to psychology and medicine. <p/>When Freud and Halsted began their experiments with cocaine in the 1880s neither they nor their colleagues had any idea of the drug's potential to dominate and endanger their lives. <i>An Anatomy of Addiction</i> tells the tragic and heroic story of each man accidentally struck down in his prime by an insidious malady: tragic because of the time relationships and health cocaine forced each to squander; heroic in the intense battle each man waged to overcome his affliction. Markel writes of the physical and emotional damage caused by the then-heralded wonder drug and how each man ultimately changed the world in spite of it--or because of it. One became the father of psychoanalysis; the other of modern surgery. Here is the full story long overlooked told in its rich historical context. </p>