General All books

Pierre Gascar
A Look at the Home of Monsieur Pasteur
The spirit which inspired Pasteur's work is kept alive by the Institut Pasteur in Paris. From the discovery of the rabies virus and vaccine, to the Nobel Prize winning work of the Paris school of molecular biology, P. Gascar traces the history of an institution which has formed some of the finest biological minds of the century.

Jean Dausset
A Nod in the Direction of Life The Great HLA Adventure
Jean Daussets finding that white blood cells play an active role in immunization won him the Nobel Prize for Medicine and opened a new area of biological investigation, both in pure and in applied research. The HLA system harbours a unique peptide which may be regarded as the essence of the self in opposition to everything else much as the pineal gland was regarded as the seat of the soul by Descartes. The distinction between the self and the non-self is an essential one in immunology where an individuals defensive system must fight off foreign bodies while at the same time defending his or her own system. In his book, Jean Dausset recounts the story of his discovery and introduces the reader to other fascinating aspects of his life and work.

Jean Bernard
About a Man
A sixty year battle against childhood leukemia. Life, the career of a renowned haematologist who contributed to the renaissance of medical research in France and participated in one of the greatest scientific ventures of this century: the exploration of blood. With humour and wisdom J. Bernard gives the testimony of a great humanist of our time.

Didier Houssin
Against the epidemic risk
A warning, an analysis and some proposals to protect the world’s future inhabitants

Peter Piot
AIDS in the World
A personal account, synthesis and an impassioned plea in which science and politics converge to fight AIDS

Hélène Cardin, Danielle Messager, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
The AIDS Revolution
Thirty years after the groundbreaking discovery of the HIV virus, its co-discoverer assesses today’s social and medical situation.

Delphine Lhuillery, Erick Petit, Eric Sauvanet
All about endometriosis Relieving pain, curing illness
This is the first scientific and accessible book on endometriosis, this specifically female disease, which is still too little known to patients, but also to the medical profession.

Alexandre Minkowski
The Art of Giving Birth
How are children born today in different cultures? At once a history of birth throughout the ages and a comprehensive medical anthropology, this book constitutes a rigorous overview and breakdown of our current knowledge in the fields of foetal biology and neonatal medicine. As a professor and the director of a research laboratory at Port-Royal, Alexandre Minkowski has dedicated his life's work to the medical and scientific study of the foetus.

Jean Hamburger
Beautiful Imprudences
"Man has broken all the commandments to which living beings are bound. We had the audacity to want the weak to be protected. We gave rights to the individual. We decreased the rate of infant mortality and doubled the rate of life expectancy. But can we avoid the punishments of these beautiful imprudences?" Jean Hamburger Jean Hamburger was at the forefront of modern necrology and the principals of medical resuscitation. A member of the Académie Française and the Académie de Médecine, he was also President of the Académie des Sciences.

Hélène Merle-Béral
The Biology of Immortality Who wants to be immortal?
Immortality is no longer what it used to be. This brief history introduces the proponents and the implications of it. Life can be prolonged; medical science is constantly proving this; but it cannot thwart the great laws of biology.

Julien Cohen-Solal
Cinq sous de glace Fifty Years of Pediatrics
Julien Cohen-Solal has made some of the greatest progress over the past several decades in France in understanding the needs of young children. After many of his books have become classics in the field and served as landmarks to many families, Cohen-Solal tells today of his childhood and adolescence in Algeria during the 30s and 40s, of his discovery of the Parisian post-war medical world, of the influences and discoveries that punctuated his education, and of relationships with parents and children that were important to him. Now is the occassion to celebrate fifty years of pediatrics in France, fifty years of scientific, clinical, and psychological advances.