Contents

• From self-heal to family doctors; or, how did medicine come about?
• Onions, pyramids and clay tables: the Egyptian heritage
• The good life; or, the Jewish heritage
• Classical medicine
• Indian routes
• Roman connections
• Spices of life
• God or mandrake?
• A light in the East; or, Islamic medicine
• The medical school of Salerno
• Middle age spread
• New medicines for old
• Simple English
• Trading on ill health
• Ginseng and the Royal Society connection
• Virtues old and new
• Botanical medicine
• Urban sprawl
• Survival, and the unfit
• Iatrogenics and geriatrics
• Serendipity : the Ayurvedic legacy of Sri Lanka
• China syndrome: to recapitulate the essence of this ptisane and to prove that at least in part the problems can be solved
• Hello, Homo sapiens! This is your largest endocrine gland calling