author
Lester S. (Lester Snow) King
1908–2002
Remembered as a physician who turned history into lively reading, this American medical historian wrote clearly about how medicine changed across the centuries. His work connected pathology, journalism, and scholarship in a way that still feels approachable.
1 Audiobook
Medical investigation in seventeenth century England
by Charles W. Bodemer, Lester S. (Lester Snow) King
About the author
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Lester Snow King (1908–2002) was an American pathologist, medical editor, medical journalist, and medical historian. He studied at Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, and later built a career that moved between laboratory medicine, teaching, and writing.
King served as a pathologist during World War II and later worked at the University of Illinois Medical School. He also became a senior editor at the Journal of the American Medical Association and was associated with the University of Chicago, where he taught in the history of medicine.
He is especially known for books that made the development of medicine easier to understand for general readers and students, including The Medical World of the Eighteenth Century, Transformations in American Medicine, and Medical Thinking: A Historical Preface. His writing focused on the ideas behind medical practice, not just the discoveries, which helped make him a respected guide to the history and philosophy of medicine.