How does medical science advance? Popular historians would have us believe that a few heroic individuals, possessing superhuman talents, lead an unselfish quest to better the human condition. But as renowned Yale surgeon and medical historian Sherwin B. Nuland shows in this brilliant collection of linked life portraits, the theory bears little resemblance to the truth.

Through the centuries, the men and women Who have shaped the world of medicine have been not only very human people but also very much the products of their own times and places. Presenting compelling studies of great medical innovators and pioneers, Doctors gives us the extraordinary story of the development of modern medicine -- told through the lives of the physician-scientists whose deeds and determination paved the way. Ranging from the legendary Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, to Andreas Vesalius, whose Renaissance masterwork on anatomy offered invaluable new insight into the human body, to Helen Taussig, founder of pediatric cardiology and co-inventor of the original "blue baby" operation, here is a volume filled with the spirit of ideas and the thrill of discovery. Says The New York Times, "Doctors can be warmly recommended. Dr. Nuland succeeds in bringing his subjects vividly to life, and he leaves you with a much better understanding of what they achieved."