Medical innovation is an extremely important topic--and one to which relatively little study has been devoted. This volume is designed to introduce readers to the history and development of key advances in the science and practice of medicine. It explores issues in medical history and provides perspective on contemporary scientific research and innovation. It also provides a backdrop against which to evaluate current headlines, such as the discoveries of live samples of smallpox virus in an unused storage room at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and incidents of bubonic plague in...