'I did almost believe the motion of the heart was known to God alone.' William Harvey

From selfless geniuses to self-promoting quacks, medicine more than any other science seems to have attracted all manner of human characters. Sometimes, as in the case of the bombastic sixteenth-century German Paracelsus, there is a curious blend of the two; at the opposite end of the scale is the quiet English country doctor Edward Jenner, whose vaccine eliminated the scourge of smallpox. Paul Strathern follows the development of medicine through the lives of its greatest practitioners, whose discoveries (and errors) shaped the course of medical history.

The origins of modern medicine date from William Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood in the early sixteenth century. But its roots stretch back as far as Hippocrates in Ancient Greece, when medicine first began to emerge from religious and mystical practices and began instead to rely upon observation and reason.

Its path is filled with tales of rivalry and skulduggery, unsung heroism and miraculous accidents (Fleming's discovery of penicillin was so accidental he all but forgot about it). With natural philosophy, anatomy, grave robbing, plague, germ theory, nursing, syphilis, atomic theory, micro-organisms and SARS along the way, this is the ultimate story of human -- and humane -- achievement.

Series Editor: Saul David