"Several of these pieces have appeared, in slightly different form, in the New Yorker and Slate"--T.p. verso.

pt. 1. Fallibility: Education of a knife -- The computer and the hernia factory -- When doctors make mistakes -- Nine thousand surgeons -- When good doctors go bad -- pt. 2. Mystery: Full moon Friday the thirteenth -- The pain perplex -- A queasy feeling -- Crimson tide -- The man who couldn't stop eating -- pt. 3. Uncertainty: Final cut -- The dead baby mystery -- Whose body is it anyway? -- The case of the red leg.