In Kill or Cure (DK, £19.99), popular science writer Steve Parker transports us through man’s medical journey by highlighting milestones that have changed our approach to health care.

The discovery of penicillin — for which Parker gives due credit to Oxford’s team of Florey, Chain and Heatley — and the socially divisive exposure of the Aids epidemic are two of the many landmark events brought to life by clear and concise narrative, complemented by the use of photographs and illustrations to show how medicine has progressed from the rudimentary to the space age.

The apparently magical cures of sorcerers and mystics were the precursors of modern day medicine and it was this cultural belief in the unknown, embodied by an all- pervading fear of God, that gave early doctors their power. The transition from herbalism to 21st- century telesurgery has been more evolution than quantam leap and this is a reflection of society’s gradual acceptance of science as the basis for longer life over and above the limited spiritual solace provided by the power of prayer.

As a general reader, I found the book hard work, but the author’s largely clinical appraisal is lightened by unexpected examples of the sometimes inadvertent impact of medical research.

The use of nitrous oxide as an early anaesthetic in the 17th century, for example, was found to not only deaden the pain of toothache but also induce uncontrollable laughter in the patient. “Laughing gas” somewhat remarkably became the drug of choice at select parties of the time. Perhaps recreational drug use is far too serious these days.

The uncovering of DNA is a watershed moment but what this book continually reinforces is that medical development goes at its own pace, for example in the eradication of smallpox. Joseph Lister started to use cowpox as a vaccine back in the late 18th century, but we had to wait until 1980 for the World Health Assembly to declare the world free of this dreadful disease.

Ultimately, though, the author proves that it has been scientific research rather than time that has proved the great healer.