He charts the remarkable rise of modern medical science - the emergence of specialties such as anatomy, physiology, neurology, and bacteriology - as well as the accompanying development of wider medical practice at the bedside, in the hospital, and in the ambitious public health systems of the twentieth century. Along the way the book offers up a treasure trove of historical surprises: how the ancient Egyptians treated incipient baldness with a mixture of hippopotamus, lion, crocodile, goose, snake, and ibex fat; how a mystery epidemic devastated ancient Athens and brought an end to the domination of that great city: how lemons did as much as Nelson to defeat Napoleon: how yellow fever, carried by African mosquitoes to the Americas, led the French to fail utterly in their attempts to recover Haiti after the slave revolt of 1790: and how the explorers of the South Seas brought both syphilis to Tahiti and tuberculosis and measles to the Maoris.