Myths and men.

This article presents information about the book "Moments of Truth: Four Creators of Modern Medicine," by Thomas Dormandy. The question here is whether Dormandy's book is just a chronicle of the lives of men whose greatness is already a given, or whether it is more analytical and critical, and makes any judgment on the nature and measure of their greatness. The stories that Dormandy tells are good, but how do they stand up as history and biography? Novelists, playwrights and journalists recognize one thing above all others: that the essence of drama is that the part is greater than the whole.