This books explores the research of six medical professionals in their searches for the causes and cures of various diseases such as polio, koro and the common cold. Eron traces the lives of the scientists involved and explains their trial and error processes of some of the world’s most important scientific discoveries. It goes without saying that since this book was written in the early eighties, all of the doctors involved are white men. it is nonetheless interesting but a bit dry. The chapter on DNA and RNA was a bit unreadable due to the absence of any sort of human story associated with it. The chapter on polio was probably the most interesting due to the war being waged between Jonas Salk, inventor of the first widely-used polio vaccine, and Albert Sabin, inventor of the first totally safe polio vaccine. The book is well-written but contains a lot of medical speak that may be tough to overcome for all but the most seriously-minded medical non-fiction readers.