Modern Medicine: Ten Drugs

Ten Drugs: How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine

by Thomas Hager

This book was an audiobook of the day, I think, and caught my eye. I thought it might be a good choice for a high school level supplemental book for chemistry or biology.

Mr. Hager is a journalist and therefore often emphasizes the most awful and sensational aspects of his stories including suicide and violent attacks like the first recorded murder due to a date-rape drug. The chapter on the discovery of the birth control pill assumes the vast benefits of the discovery, though it was not a surprising or unexpected portrayal. Part of the same chapter covers the development of Viagra and an almost raunchy description of a conference presentation.

The book is almost unbiased. It attacks the pharmaceutical industry a bit, though not as much as others might and qualified with commendations for brilliant discoveries. He repeatedly emphasizes that the pharmaceutical companies are very good at doing what they are supposed to do: discover and successfully market medications. They are in the business to make a profit and many of them do it very well.

The best chapters are those on opioids and statins. Writing about opioids, Mr. Hager provides a historical context for the current crisis. He explains the chemical interactions of the drugs and emphasizes their inherent and massive propensity for addiction, exploring how those characteristics within our current societal and medical structures are leading to the current epidemic in modern America.

The chapter on statins discusses how to study and assess medical information as it applies to risks and benefits in our own lives.

Put simply, today's large drug companies are great at finding evidence for therapies that promise profits, pretty good at downplaying evidence that gets in the way, and grand masters at promoting their products to physicians and the public.

Mr. Hager's deep interest in statins started with a letter he received from his insurance company, suggesting he contact his doctor about a prescription.

It was all numbers being crunched and form letters being pumped out. It was health care by algorithm. The result: a physician I've never met recommending that I consider taking a new prescription drug, potentially for the rest of my life. 

He shares the research he did and conversations he had with his doctor about the risks and benefits of statins, not just in theory, but as applied directly to his own life.

The book doesn't really have enough science to add to our chemistry studies. As for biology, it isn't compelling enough to be better than Microbe Hunters or Flu. I did find the two chapters on opioids and statins excellent options for our health course, which First Son is completing now, in tenth grade. (I have scheduled it to coincide with an anatomy course for biology.)

• Chapter 8: The Enchanted Ring - I particularly want my children to read this chapter because it makes the addictive potential of opioids obvious. They are much better off if they never take them at all, and certainly never in a non-medical setting.
• Chapter 9: Statins: A Personal Story - on assessing risks and benefits in modern medicine, which I think will be more and more valuable as we are faced with increasing numbers of medication available for non-curable conditions.

I have received nothing in exchange for this honest review. Links to Amazon are affiliate links.

Medieval Christian Warfare in Poem: The Song of Roland (Schedule and Exam Questions for Level 5 Year 2)

The Song of Roland

translated by Glyn Burgess

The Mater Amabilis™ high school plans recommend The Song of Roland for the first term's epic in Level 5 Year 2 (tenth grade).

This Penguin Classics translation had reasonably good reviews online and was available from PaperBackSwap.com. I haven't read any other translations, but this one was enjoyable and reasonably easy to follow while still reflecting some of the anachronisms of the medieval French. There's also an appendix of much of the French for the ambitious few.

You can find many excellent summaries of the poem online. What you'll find here is our schedule for the poem and a list of the questions from our exam. I'm not an expert on medieval literature or the writing of exam questions, but they may be at least a place to start for any other Mater Amabilis™ families.

The portion of the introduction assigned on the first day gives an overview of the action of the poem, which I thought would help First Son follow the events. The readings here seem of a reasonable length and are meant to be narrated each day. Finishing in seven weeks allows more time for Paradise Lost, which I anticipate being a more difficult read for First Son.

Week 1
1. Introduction pp 10 (start with last paragraph) - 13 (end of page) AND stanzas 1-26

2. stanzas 27-52

Week 2
1. stanzas 53-78

2. stanzas 79-92

Week 3
1. stanzas 93-116

2. stanzas 117-140

Week 4
1. stanzas 141-161

2. stanzas 162-182

Week 5
1. stanzas 183-203

2. stanzas 204-227

Week 6
1. stanzas 228-268

2. stanzas 269-298 (end of poem)

Week 7

Test on The Song of Roland

Exam Questions

1. Who is Ganelon? What does he do and what happens to him?

2. Who is Roland? What does he do in the poem?

3. Who is Charlemagne? What does he do in the poem?

4. Does Turpin fit your image of a Catholic archbishop? Explain.

5. Describe how the will of God is seen by the poet in the events of the poem.

6. What does The Song of Roland tell you about how medieval Christians thought about Muslims and Islam?

7. Compare and contrast the battles in The Song of Roland with those in The Iliad.

8. Describe your favorite part of The Song of Roland.

I have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links to Amazon and PaperBackSwap are affiliate links. 

Adventure to Australia: Botany Bay

Botany Bay

by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

I snagged this book at a recent library book sale thinking it might be useful as historical fiction to read in our high school geography course when we get to Australia. It's the exciting adventure of a loyalist American who ends up arrested for highway robbery and sentenced to life in Australia. He falls in love, does well as a prisoner, escapes, and manages to get pardoned before returning to Australia as a wealthy colonist. There are, you may imagine, a great many twists and turns, which thankfully keep the reader interested despite a rather explanatory storyteller.

The historical details in the story are far-ranging: Loyalists in America after the Revolutionary War, the destitute in London, the squalor of Newgate Prison, and the injustices and horrors of the penal colony expeditions.

One aspect it barely touches is how the Aboriginal Australians viewed the prisoners and the colonists. Though at least one family lives near the narrator, they play a small role in the book. There is a pleasant description of a large family group, or extended family, that are observed without their knowledge. They are generally depicted as enjoying a loving and joyful outing.

This book is best for mature readers. There are plenty of descriptions of disreputable women, men, and the activities they share. There's nothing too explicit or graphic and they are generally derided. Also be aware many of the main characters are criminals and their activities are sometimes lauded. One of the main characters, in addition to being a pleasant highway robber, becomes a father before he is married.

Overall, I think this is a solid contender for supplemental reading for Level 6 geography when we cover Australia. The historical context is fantastic and the adventurous story is likely to interest high schoolers. It may not be high literature, but it's fun and already on our shelves.

I haven't linked to the Kindle edition above because it's economical and had a nice picture that matched the cover of the copy I have. I haven't read the Kindle edition, so I can't promise it doesn't have terrible formatting or something like that.

I have received nothing in exchange for this honest review. Links to Amazon are affiliate links.

Before the Trojan War: Tales of the Greek Heroes

Tales of the Greek Heroes

by Roger Lancelyn Green

Roger Lancelyn Green is a master storyteller. I recently read his Tales of Ancient Egypt and was thrilled when someone posted Tales of the Greek Heroes on PaperBackSwap.com.

There are plenty of books of Greek myths and heroes, of course, but Green's book does something a bit different. He attempts to weave the disparate tales into a single whole, mingling stories and ordering events as they might have happened in a mythical chronological order.

Before each chapter, Green includes an excerpt from a poem about or inspired by the subject. Some of them are translations of ancient works and some are modern references. It's a wonderful way to subtly imply the vast reverberations of the Greek myths through time and literature as well as introduce some excellent bits of literature.

I was not intending to use this book for our history studies, but it is included in RC History's Connecting with History Volume 1. Rather than rewrite our lesson plans, I've just added it to the optional supplemental reading lists for First Daughter (7th grade) and Second Daughter (5th grade).

I think you could also substitute it for the Greek myth book recommended by Mater Amabilis™ for Level 1A, Classic Myths to Read Aloud. I love that book, but some people find the stories long and these may be a bit shorter. It can also be frustrating if children are confused by the inexplicable switching from Greek to Roman names in Classic Myths to Read Aloud. Green's book uses only Greek names. There is a list in the back showing the Latin name for each Greek one.

Green doesn't include the tales of the Trojan War or of the Odyssey; he has other books for those.

I have the hardcover of the Puffin Classics edition and it's lovely.

I have received nothing in exchange for this post which includes only my honest opinion. Links to Amazon, RC History, and PaperBackSwap are affiliate links.

Connecting Math: Discovery Journal

Discovery Journal, with quotations

In August 2018, Denise Gaskins (of the fabulous Let's Play Math and Math You Can Play books) offered a review copy of her new Discovery Journal. I requested one for First Daughter, who loves all things quotable. The quotations all appear at the tops or bottoms of pages in the same color as the dots. They don't get in the way. First Daughter did enjoy them. She read through all the quotes as soon as we got the book.

This is an excellent dot journal. The left-hand page has alternating dots to make easy triangles while the right-hand page keeps the dots lined up vertically and horizontally for a perfect grid. Ms. Gaskins shared some ideas for sketching with the journals on her blog and another one in an email to me. I tried to encourage First Daughter to try some of these in her journal. I also encouraged her to use our compass to draw circles and then made designs inside of them. But First Daughter really just wanted to use it for her math assignments. Every once in a while, she would doodle or use the dots to sketch out a triangle or graph for one of her problem sets, but she wasn't very interested in exploring all the fun ways you can connect dots.

The journal itself held up really well. First Daughter carried it everywhere and often left it lying around, but not a single page fell out and the both covers are still attached. The weight of the pages is good, too. They are thicker than the pages you would find in the dotted composition books in the school supplies aisle. Pen does not go through it, though our markers did. The colored pencils work well on them, too.

The post contains my honest opinion. I received a free copy of the Discovery Journal from the author. The link to Amazon is an affiliate link.

September 2019 Book Reports

Look at the Sky and Tell the Weather by Eric Sloane - link to my post (purchased copy)

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (No Fear Shakespeare) - Apparently, this is one of the Shakespeare plays most read in high school, but I'd missed it. Lots of blood and famous lines. First Son is reading this in tenth grade, but I'll assign it to the others in ninth grade (matching up with our study of ancient Rome in history). (purchased copy)

Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass by Isak Dinesen - link to my post (copy from PaperBackSwap.com)

Hamlet by William Shakespeare (No Fear Shakespeare) - Both my tenth grader and my seventh grader will be reading this play. It's quite long so they won't read an entire act each week. We're right in the midst of memorizing lines from the play using How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare so I thought it was an appropriate choice for the year. (purchased copy)

The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt (Landmark Books) by Elizabeth Payne and The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone: Key to Ancient Egypt by James Cross Giblin - link to my post (purchased copies)

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - This classic was different than I remembered it, a little less exciting, a little more depressing, and a little more contrived. I think I skimmed over a lot of the "boring" conversations when I read it as a teenager. Those same conversations strike me as disturbingly prescient today. Though it was easy to pick apart the inconsistencies and the instances where the plot seems unlikely, there was something, as always, lovely just in listening to Bradbury's language: lyrical and powerful. (purchased Audible book)

Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer by Tim Jeal - link to my post (library copy)

Lady Susan and The Watsons by Jane Austen - These two books, one Austen never published and a second she never finished, were recommended by Audible because they know I love all things Austen. I enjoyed listening to the stories, though obviously they are not her best. Lady Susan is written as a series of letters and sometimes it was more difficult in an audiobook to tell who was writing each one. (purchased on Audible)

Not So Fast: Parenting Your Teen Through the Dangers of Driving by Tim Hollister and Pam Shadel Fischer - link to my post (library copy)

The Creed in Slow Motion by Ronald Knox - link to my post (purchased copy)

After Anatevka: Live by Alexandra Silber - This is an Audible original offered as one of the free books of the month. Ms. Silber created this stage performance melding readings from her book, After Anatevka, and performances of songs from Fiddler on the Roof and new compositions written to complement her book. It was enjoyable with some delightful music. (free from Audible in October 2018)

The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (The Great Courses) by Patrick N. Allitt - link to my post (purchased audio book)

Elizabeth II: Life of a Monarch by Ruth Cowen - This was another Audible original offered as a free book of the month to members. I thought it would be interested as a supplement to my recent audiobook on the British Empire. It was kind of an interesting take on Queen Elizabeth's life, but it wasn't a complete biography. There were quite a lot of lurid details of the other royals' love lives. (free from Audible in April 2019)

In Ethiopia with a Mule by Dervla Murphy - link to my post (purchased copy)

Folsom Untold by Danny Robins - This audio book on Johnny Cash and his Folsom album is a little melodramatic, but it was interesting to hear something about the album, how it came about, and what happened later. It looks like it's no longer available on Audible, but if you're interested in all things Johnny Cash, you may want to see if you can find it elsewhere. (free from Audible in February 2019)

I have received nothing in exchange for these posts. All opinions are my own. Links to Amazon, PaperBackSwap, and RC History are affiliate links.