In today's era of modern Western medicine, organ transplants are almost routine, and daily headlines about the mysteries of DNA and the human genome promise that the secrets of life itself are tantalizingly within our reach.
Yet to reach this point took thousands of years.
One step at a time, through leaps of progress and hurdles of devastating disappointment, mankind's medical knowledge has moved forward from a time when even the slightest cut held the threat of infection and death, when the flow of the blood within the body was a mystery and "cells" were not even a concept, and when the appearance of a simple instrument allowing a physician to listen to the beat of a diseased heart was a profound advance.
How was medical science able to make this extraordinary journey? What major discoveries made it possible? Who were the fascinating individuals responsible for those discoveries, and what qualities prepared each of them for their unique roles in medical history?
The scope of medical history reveals a compelling story.