1. The philosophy of medicine before Rudolf Virchow and Louis Pasteur -- 2. The care of the sick before 1800 -- 3. Medical education: the birth of a profession -- 4. The years of plague -- 5. Prevention of smallpox -- 6. Cholera and sanity reform -- 7. Alcoholism, syphilis and tuberculosis -- 8. The birth of scientific medicine -- 9. Towards a National Health Service -- 10. A Health Service in being