A "patient zero" is a patient on whom a new diagnosis is based. Fine-tuned like short fiction, these accounts of patient zeroes tell a different story about medical history: stories of how healthcare is reverse-engineered. Some of these cases are famous, like young Joseph Meister, the first patient ever to be vaccinated against rabies, by Pasteur.
However, most of them are unknown. Through their lens, this book examines the vicissitudes, excesses, and errors of medicine from the past to the present.