At a time when the word addiction was not even in a physician’s lexicon, Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and William Halsted, the father of modern surgery, simultaneously and independently fell into the clutches of their period’s “wonder drug”, cocaine.
In An Anatomy of Addiction, medical historian Howard Markel openly addresses their “recklessly practic[ing] medicine while under the influence”, as he retells the colourful stories of how each man rose to greatness and then succumbed to the product of their own academic curiosity.
Ever pragmatic, Markel remains a loyal supporter of Freud’s and Halsted’s controversial but remarkable careers,…
