A Heart Afire

A deeply compelling biography of the pioneering children’s heart doctor Helen Taussig, who helped start heart surgery and became a global force against preventable suffering. In A Heart Afire , Patricia Meisol renders a moving portrait of the indomitable pediatrician and global patient activist Helen Taussig (1898–1986), who famously gathered and publicized evidence linking thalidomide to birth defects, leading to US drug safety laws. Taussig also developed the Blalock-Taussig shunt (along with