Extreme Medicine

Little more than 100 years ago, maps of the world still boasted white space: places where no human had ever trod. Within a few short decades the most hostile of the world's environments had all been conquered. Likewise, in the 20th century, medicine transformed human life. Doctors took what was routinely fatal and made it survivable. As modernity brought us ever more into different kinds of extremes, doctors pushed the bounds of medical advances and human endurance. Extreme exploration challenged the body in ways that only the vanguard of science could answer.

A collection of the most memorable moments from old-school rural physicians who each practiced medicine for more than 50 years in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Hilarious, heroic, heartwarming true stories of miracle cures, ghost dogs, and much madcap medical mayhem.