In 1901, a British female had a life expectancy of fifty-one years on average, but by the 1980s, a mere eighty years later, she could expect to live to at least seventy-seven years of age. The twentieth century saw an exponential leap in all measure of health, made possible by advances in medicine. The quest to prevent and cure diseases has been a focus of human activity for as long as humans have been vulnerable to sickness and injury. This incisive edition explores the complex history of medicine with accessible language, maps, and timelines. Readers will learn about the science and personalities that have struggled to solve the most complex illnesses. Relevant discussions include: primitive and ancient medicine, Greek and Roman medicine, medicine in the Middle Ages, the awakening in medical thinking that took place during the renaissance, medicine in the age of reason, and the challenges in the twentieth century and beyond.