Where There Is No Doctor

Where There Is No Doctor
A village health care handbook
by David Werner with Carol Thuman and Jane Maxwell
Updated 2009
512 pages, illustrated
Second revised edition: 1992. Tenth revised printing: May 2009.
English ed. ISBN13: 978-0-942364-15-6. ISBN10: 0-942364-15-5

Hesperian's classic manual, Where There Is No Doctor, is perhaps the most widely-used health care manual for health workers, clinicians, and others involved in primary health care delivery and health promotion programs around the world. With millions of copies in print in more than 75 languages, the manual provides practical, easily understood information on how to diagnose, treat, and prevent common diseases. Special attention is focused on nutrition, infection and disease prevention, and diagnostic techniques as primary ways to prevent and treat health problems.

This 2009 reprint includes new material on childhood vaccinations, HIV prevention and medicines, treating serious injuries, the resurgence of yaws, drug resistance and changes in STI and malaria medications, asthma treatment, and the differences in signs of heart attacks in women and men.

Related Materials

• Download this book on our Free Downloads page
• Now available on CD! Where There is no Doctor and Donde no hay doctor together on one CD
• Available in Spanish: Donde no hay doctor
• New editions available in Chinese (Taiwan) and Karakalpak (Uzbekistan)! Visit our translations page.
• If you are interested in general health manuals, you may also find interest in our books Where Women Have No Doctor and Where There Is No Dentist.
• Read feedback from our users in a systematic evaluation of Where There Is No Doctor.

What people have to say about Where There Is No Doctor:

"I consider Where There Is No Doctor my health bible. I carry it with me on every trip I take, and refer to it often. The information provided in this book is simple, straight forward, and easy to read. I would highly recommend that any person planning to serve overseas have a personal copy for reference."
-Anita Good
Mennonite Central Committee Honduras

"Your book Where There Is No Doctor is our 'bible' of health education and is the first tool with which we equip organizations new to our program. The full body of Hesperian publications is our encyclopedia, and our experience has shown that once we have your publications we need look no further for health education materials. Even if we did look, we wouldn't find anything. There's nothing out there like it!"
-Ellen Vor der Bruegge
Freedom From Hunger

"Home health care manuals are a dime a dozen, but this one is in a league by itself... This amazing manual [Where There Is No Doctor]...successfully brings together modern concepts of public health and personal health care into a usable and understandable format for the Third World villager. If you are a physician, dentist or nurse planning to volunteer on a medical mercy mission, review this book ahead of time and take it with you."
-Annals of Internal Medicine, vol. 125, no. 12

"Everything and anything you need to know about healthcare. We live in the heart of Africa where there are no doctors, and mysterious illnesses and bacteria keep popping up. Since we have this book there is much less cause for worry. Don't leave home without it!"
-A customer from Malawi, Africa

"The best medical book written in the last 10 years..."
-David Morley, MD

"Where There Is No Doctor is an indispensable resource... This book has been, quite literally, a lifesaver for the poor - even where there is a doctor."
-Paul Farmer, Professor of Social Medicine
Harvard Medical School

"The Hesperian Foundation has been selling (this) Third World medical manual at a brisk pace for more than 25 years. ...(This) classic public-health text has meant survival for thousands in the Third World since the early 1970s, according to officials from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Peace Corps. ...it stands as arguably the most widely use public-health manual in the world, according to WHO. ...WHO officials noted that since 1978, it, too, has adopted the kind of community-based approach to health care exemplified by (Where There Is No Doctor). Both WHO and UNICEF now buy (the book) for their field offices..."
-Monica Eng
Chicago Tribune

"My dog-eared copies of Where There is No Doctor, A Village Health Care Handbook...both have bent covers, broken spines, and ripped pages. They have absorbed coffee spills, close encounters with mud puddles and leaky roofs, and much handling from me and my friends who have pawed over them eagerly trying to understand our bodies and affect our health care. ...I dragged Where There is No Doctor along with me on various sojourns to Central America. I consulted it when we had private run-ins with malaria and other tropical diseases, and it was a comfort to know that its straightforward explanations and simple drawings might be of great consequence to us, and others around us when we were far from medical help. Perhaps most importantly, both books demystified and politicized health care. Although some health problems require expert medical attention, there is much that we can do on our own to positively affect our health..."
-Cynthia Peters
Zmagazine Book Reviews