An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted and the Miracle Drug Cocaine October 12, 2011

The acclaimed medical historian Howard Markel talks about his latest book, "An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted and the Miracle Drug Cocaine" – the astonishing account of the years-long cocaine use of Sigmund Freud, young, ambitious neurologist, and William Halsted, the equally young, pathfinding surgeon. Markel writes of the physical and emotional damage caused by the then-heralded wonder drug, and how each man ultimately changed the world in spite of it—or because of it. One became the father of psychoanalysis; the other, of modern surgery.

Join us in the Hatcher Library Gallery for this conversation with Howard Markel and Daniel Herwitz. Free and open to the public.

Howard Markel, professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases and director of the Center for the History of Medicine, is the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan.

Daniel Herwitz is Director of the Institute for the Humanities and Mary Fair Croushore Professor of the Humanities at the University of Michigan.

Sponsored by the Author's Forum, which is a collaboration between the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan Library, Great Lakes Literary Arts Center, and the Ann Arbor Book Festival.