John O'Shea "Music and Medicine".

Author: John O'Shea Original title: Music & Medicine. Medical profiles of great composers. Genre: popular science Medical topic: history of medicine, composers' illnesses and doctors Year of first publication: 1990 (worldwide), 1998 (Poland) Description: The lives of most famous composers are shrouded in legend. John O'Shea has meticulously gathered available, often incomplete historical data to reveal those aspects of the lives of great musical creators that undoubtedly influenced their personalities and work. The book is an attempt to resolve many contentious issues, including the causes of the premature death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (uremia, acute rheumatoid arthritis, Schoenlein-Henoch syndrome) and Frédéric Chopin (tuberculosis, cystic fibrosis), as well as the physiological factors behind the musical genius of Nicola Paganini, who was suspected of having Marfan syndrome. The author also provides us with plenty of interesting facts, such as that many prominent doctors were also musicians; one example is the surgeon and pianist Theodor Billroth, a friend of Johannes Brahms, who dedicated several of his compositions to him. For me, this book is extraordinary because it combines my two passions: music and medicine. It is written in a language clear to both the layperson and the physician, even though the author is a medical graduate and a historian of medicine. For the residents of Wrocław, I would like to add that the translator, Stanisław Dubiski, graduated from medical school and worked under the supervision of Prof. Hirszfeld at our university.