Owsei Temkin, who holds his medical degree from the University of Leipzig, is William H. Welch Professor Emeritus of the History of Medicine and former director of the Johns Hopkins Institute of the History of Medicine. Widely recognized as one of the leading authorities in his field, Dr. Temkin is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of the Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in the Humanities from the American Council of Learned Societies. Among his previous books is The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginning of Modern Neurology and The...