Introduction.

1. Hippocrates: A Principle and a Method.

2. Herophilus and Erasistratus: The Light That Failed.

3. Marcus Varro: The Germ of an Idea.

4. Soranus: The Birthing Doctor.

5. Galen of Pergamon: Combative Genius.

6. The Enlightened Mind of Abu Bakr al-Razi.

7. Ibn al-Nafis: Galen’s Nemesis.

8. Paracelsus: Renaissance Rebel.

9. Andreas Vesalius: Driven to Dissection.

10. Johann Weyer: A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World.

11. William Harvey and the Movements of the Heart.

12. Edward Jenner: A Friend of Humanity.

13. Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On: The Discovery of Anesthesia.

14. Antisepsis: Awakening from a Nightmare.

15. The Quiet Dr. Snow.

16. Pasteur and the Germ Theory of Disease.

17. Out of the Corner of His Eye: Roentgen Discovers X-rays.

18. Sigmund Freud’s Dynamic Unconscious.

19. Beyond Bacteria: Ivanovsky’s Discovery of Viruses.

20. The Prepared Mind of Alexander Fleming.

21. Margaret Sanger and the Pill.

22. Organ Transplantation: A Legacy of Life.

23. A Baby’s Cry: The Birth of In Vitro Fertilization.

24. Humanity Eradicates a Disease—Smallpox—for the First Time.

25. Cannibals, Kuru, and Mad Cows: A New Kind of Plague.

26. Self, Nonself, and Danger: Deciphering the Immune System.

27. Discovery Can’t Wait: Deciding the Human Genome.

28. Into the Future.

References and Further Reading.

Index.