This book had some parts of it that were completely familiar. It is a book about medical detection -- someone comes in to your hospital sick in a weird way and you need to find out not only what is wrong with them but how they got sick. Roueche has written several books like this one. Many of the stories are in the first person, such as the one about the man who woke up one morning in a strange hotel with his memory completely gone and wandered around the city frenetically trying to figure out who he was. This book was first published in 1954 but is still good reading today, though some of the medical dilemmas the doctor has to deal with have been taken care of by better sanitation and better product packaging and labelling. Turns out some of these stories appeared in a book I had read last year also by Roueche, giving me an odd sense of deja vu when I read it. Fascinating account of the history of apsirin and a scary tale of cortisone overdose.