Health & Wellness

An indispensable reference which is sure to become the go-to health and wellness guide for parents.

This comprehensive and contemporary guide is written by the pediatric experts at the world-renowned Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). It goes without saying that no one understands kids or relates to parents better than these extraordinary experts. It covers over 235 childhood conditions and illnesses in children ages newborn to ten in a friendly yet authoritative manner.

Parents will find all the valuable information they need to better understand and manage their child’s health concerns. All the illnesses are arranged alphabetically by “Condition & Care” — making it easy, quick and accessible for parents — for those situations when time really is of the essence. Parents will find expert advice on how to cope with everything from common accidents and emergencies that occur in childhood, to information on the nature of the many conditions that can affect their child. Most importantly, they get answers to three questions: 1) what is the condition, 2) what might happen as a result of the condition, and 3) how should the problem be treated?

Some of the topics covered include:
-Fever, headaches and migraine, asthma, abdominal pain
-Croup, failure to thrive, thumb sucking and nail biting, night terrors
-Heart murmurs, infective endocarditis, measles, mumps and rubella
-Rheumatic fever, spina bifida, tonsillitis and strep throat
-Down syndrome, head lice, separation anxiety, shingles.

There are photographs and diagrams featured throughout the book, making it easy for parents to accurately pinpoint what potential condition and/or illness their child may be experiencing. An extensive glossary of terms combined with a well-organized index complete this valuable guide.

Much of the health advice we receive today tells us that in order to be healthy, we must consume a Spartan diet, exercise with the intensity of an Olympic athlete, and take a drug for every ailment. We constantly worry about the foods we should or shouldn’t be eating and the medical tests we have neglected to take. And all that worry costs us dearly–financially, emotionally, and physically.

In The Good Vices, prominent naturopathic physician Dr. Harry Ofgang and health journalist Erik Ofgang tear down decades of myth and prejudice to reveal how some of our guilty pleasures are not only okay but actually good for our health. For example:

• Like wine, moderate beer and spirit consumption raises our bodies’ level of good cholesterol, which protects against heart disease.
• Egg yolks are an excellent source of important fat-soluble vitamins.
• Research suggests that moderate exercisers can be at least as healthy as, and sometimes even healthier than, those who exercise intensively.

Forget what you thought you knew about what’s healthy, and enjoy some good vices instead.

A puzzling series of dental explosions beginning in the nineteenth century is just one of many strange tales that have long lain undiscovered in the pages of old medical journals. Award-winning medical historian Thomas Morris delivers one of the most remarkable, cringe-inducing collections of stories ever assembled. Witness Mysterious Illnesses (such as the Rhode Island woman who peed through her nose), Horrifying Operations (1781: A French soldier in India operates on his own bladder stone), Tall Tales (like the “amphibious infant” of Chicago, a baby that could apparently swim underwater for half an hour), Unfortunate Predicaments (such as that of the boy who honked like a goose after inhaling a bird’s larynx), and a plethora of other marvels.

Beyond a series of anecdotes, these painfully amusing stories reveal a great deal about the evolution of modern medicine. Some show the medical profession hopeless in the face of ailments that today would be quickly banished by modern drugs; but others are heartening tales of recovery against the odds, patients saved from death by the devotion or ingenuity of a conscientious doctor.

However embarrassing the ailment or ludicrous the treatment, every case in The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth tells us something about the knowledge (and ignorance) of an earlier age, along with the sheer resilience of human life.