Petr Skrabanek Books

Posted on June 5, 2009 by Brad Taylor

Petr Skrabanek‘s books are all available on the web, but only as large pdf image files, which don’t allow searching or copying and pasting. I OCRed them, so here they are as smaller, text-based pdf files. I haven’t made any effort to manually correct them, and there are bound to be conversion errors.

The Death of Humane Medicine and the Rise of Coercive Healthism

Follies and Fallacies in Medicine (co-authored with James McCormick)

False Premises, False Promises: Selected Writings

These books were once avaialable from the Skrabanek Foundation’s website, which was hosted by Trinity College Dublin, from where Petr worked. The site disappeared without a trace, which is very unfortunate and slightly worrying. I will remove these files at the copyright-holder’s request, but since they are already available elsewhere (albeit in a less useful form) and were once available from a group representing the author, I assume it’s kosher for me to provide them here.

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17 Responses

  1. Lorraine, on July 15, 2009 at 4:59 am said:

    Thank you. I have been looking for The Death of Humane Medicine and the Rise of Coercive Healthism for years but can only find very expensive copies for sale. You deserve an accolade for submitting these. Many thanks and best wishes, Lorraine

    Reply
  2. Gus, on July 18, 2009 at 11:44 pm said:

    Thank you really very much! His books are hard to find but really deserve to be known.
    Best wishes,
    Gustavo

    Reply
  3. Fred Dawes, on July 22, 2009 at 5:19 pm said:

    Thanks for your efforts.

    Reply
  4. valius, on September 12, 2009 at 9:11 am said:

    I cant’ tell you my pleasure discovering your blog and these books I’ve been looking for such long time.

    Have you read or have notice where “the poverty of epidemiology” or “the emptiness of the black box” can be found?

    Thank you sincerely

    Reply
  5. Tony, on September 30, 2009 at 11:21 am said:

    Many thanks Brad for your work on these books and for hosting them.

    “Have you read or have notice where “the poverty of epidemiology” or “the emptiness of the black box” can be found?”
    Both articles are contained in the ‘False Premises, False Promises’ Book.

    Reply
  6. Deborah, on November 19, 2009 at 9:51 am said:

    Thank you so much for putting these books on your blog. I’ve been having difficulty finding copies of them.

    Reply
  7. Manuel Santillana, on November 25, 2009 at 11:23 pm said:

    I have wrote an article about the works of professor Skrabanek. Only in spanish, but it could be useful for the students and peoplo who likes and wants new way of critical thinking.
    this is the link http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/etext/colson/17/17_5.pdf

    Reply
  8. Stephen H, on February 21, 2010 at 1:19 pm said:

    I hope no one takes this as spam, but I’m a rare book dealer and I have a copy of False Premises for sale on amazon, I just thought some of you might be interested. Just search for 1870781112

    Reply
  9. Gordon, on July 10, 2011 at 11:53 pm said:

    Thanks – these are HUGELY important works and as important now as they have ever been.

    Reply
  10. Andrew, Dublin, on July 30, 2011 at 11:01 pm said:

    I had the great honour of being taught by Petr Skrabanek and James Mc Cormick as an undergraduate medical student in TCD in the late 80’s. I was upset to hear that he did some work for the tobacco industry but I feel that the majority of his work is still credible. Great to see that you are maintaining his legacy Brad.

    Reply
  11. Kathy Hamilton, on August 29, 2011 at 12:44 pm said:

    I downloaded these 3 books directly from the Skrabanek Foundation’s pages and they remain treasured reference items in my personal library. Must-reads to understand how Health Promotion “works” in theory vs application, what it really is and may further develop into in future. Few of my “average” fellow Canadians realize what role our former federal government played in the global promotion and entrenchment of the ideology supporting Health Promotion expansion (some here refer to it as “mission creep”), nor do they understand what role Health Promotion plays with regards to every public policy developed here today and connect the Health Promotion dots between seemingly non-health-related issues.

    Kudos to you, Brad, for keeping these wonderful and educational books available online! If I recall correctly, much of the Skrabanek Foundation’s information as it was originally displayed was first merely re-located on the webserver and later eliminated entirely – assumedly nobody had the desire to keep this Foundation going following the death of James McCormick. Perhaps previous comment poster “Andrew” can confirm this or give us the rest of the story about this Foundation and its online (and offline?) demise?

    Suggested further reading about Health Promotion beginnings and politicization in Canada: the Lalonde Report and the Epp Report…both likewise still a living and growing legacy of the Canadian Trudeau Era under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (which may help explain to foreigners why many Canadians refer to Canada as “Trudeaupia”) – as truly Canadian as is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (further suggested reading “Alexis in Charterland” by Kenneth MacDonald)

    Reply
  12. The Death of Humane Medicine and the Rise of Coercive Healthism, Petr Skrabanek « Aubrey, on July 9, 2012 at 8:15 am said:

    […] of print and fairly hard to get hold of at an economic price. However, the pdf is available from Brad Taylor’s blog and it is available here for you to download also: The Death of Humane Medicine and the Rise of […]

    Reply
  16. Noel Hershfield, on September 1, 2016 at 12:54 am said:

    I was exposed to his books many years ago.Loved them and his ideas certainly helped in my practice!Too bad they have disappeared!I wonder why!

    Reply
  17. Gustav, on January 28, 2018 at 11:22 pm said:

    Thank you, I have got a Czech translation of “Fallacies”. It is good but English original is better. Looking forward to read the other two books.

    Reply

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