Takes readers on a 12,000-year journey to explore significant items that have advanced medical knowledge and practice. The fifty objects range from the everyday (a bottle of Aspirin) to singular medical advances (heart transplant pioneer Christian Bernard on the cover of TIME magazine). The objects are presented chronologically and described in two to four pages with illustrations, 150 beautiful archive images in all. Fact boxes note Location, Date, and Field, for example, epidemiology. Engaging text describes the artifacts in their social and cultural context, as well as their role in disease treatment and prevention.

Neolithic Trepanned Skulls --The Edwin Smith Papyrus -- Clay Tablets from Mesopotamia -- Atharva Veda -- Huangchi Neijing -- The Tree of Hippocrates -- The Aqua Appia -- Dioscorides' Materia Medica -- Galen's Phlebotome -- The Hôtel-Dieu -- Ten Treatises on the Eye -- The School of Salerno -- Avicenna's Tomb -- Plague Doctor's Mask -- De Humani Corporis Fabrica -- Santorio Santorio's Thermoscope -- Harvey's Diagram of Blood Circulation -- Chamberlen's Forceps -- Van Leeuwenhoek's Microscope -- The Cinchona Tree -- Edward Jenner's Lancet -- Laënnec's Stethoscope -- Morton's Ether Inhaler -- TB Sanatorium in Görbersdorf -- John Snow's Cholera Map -- Florence Nightingale's Lamp -- Louis Pasteur's Flask -- The Snellen Eye Chart -- The Red Cross Symbol -- Joseph Lister's Donkey Engine -- The X-ray Machine -- Bayer Aspirin -- Sigmund Freud's Couch -- Harold Gillies' Tubed Pedicle -- Spanish Flu Mask -- Lilly's Insulin Syringe -- The Iron Lung -- Alexander Fleming's Petri Dish -- Bryukhonenko's Autojektor -- Willem Kolff's Artificial Kidney -- World Health Organization Flag -- Crick and Watson's Double Helix -- Cigarette Package Health Warning -- The First Heart Transplant -- MRI Scanner -- Surgical Robots -- AIDS Awareness Ribbon -- Stem Cells -- Thought-Controlled Prosthesis -- Protective Clothing for Ebola.