In the 17th century the English physician, William Harvey described for the first time the details of the human circulatory system. Harvey discovered that the heart was a muscle and that by contracting, pushed blood through the body. He worked out the whole pattern of the heartbeat. William Harvey's genius changed how people understood the workings of the human body. This marked on the greatest advances in the study of medicine.

Antoine Lavoisier is considered to be the father of modern chemistry. Using experiments and careful measurements, he created a system to help chemists understand how matter behaves. He discovered and named oxygen and hydrogen, and helped set up a system to classify these and other elements. Perhaps his most famous discovery is the role oxygen plays in combustion.

Profiles the life of the Frenchman who is considered the founder of modern chemistry and biochemistry, because of his discovery of oxygen and his work on combustion and respiration.

Alfred Blalock, Helen Taussig, and Vivien Thomas recounts the lives and careers of three medical pioneers--a white male surgeon (Blalock), a white female cardiologist (Taussig), and an African-American male laboratory technician (Thomas)--who combined their skills in 1944 to create a groundbreaking operation that not only saved the lives and health of thousands of children born with heart defects but also made surgeons realize for the first time that...

Includes biographies of ten women who have made significant contributions to modern science, including Barbara McClintock, Katsuko Saruhashi, E. Margaret Burbidge, and Lydia Phindile Makhubu.

Profiles twelve Asian-American scientists, including Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Paul Chung-wu Chu, and Constance Tom Noguchi.

"A biography of ancient Greek physician Galen, whose dissections of animals led to discoveries about human anatomy. He was the authority on medical knowledge in the Western world for more than fifteen hundred years"--Provided by publisher.

Explains how cold and warm-blooded animals control their body temperatures to adjust to changes in the weather.