It came to wide attention after it was reviewed by the playwright George Bernard Shaw and marked the beginning for Guthrie of a new career in teaching the history of medicine.

[1] Guthrie's objective was to bring to a wide audience and in chronological order, the past achievements in the history of medicine,[2] from Imhotep to William Osler.

[4] In the preface, Guthrie paid tribute to his mentor, the Scottish physician John Comrie, who had introduced him to the subject of medical history, Alexander Miles who "read the original manuscript and supplied much helpful criticism in the early stages of the work", the librarian of the Royal Society of Medicine G. F. Home and to J. C. Corson from Edinburgh University Library who prepared the index.

[6] The book received at least 53 English-language reviews[6] which Guthrie kept in a scrapbook which was passed to his friend Haldane Philp Tait and is now (2019) in the collections of the Lothian Health Service Archive.

[6][5] Shaw's review was then published in the New York Journal-American, an American daily newspaper which brought the book to the attention of a large readership in the United States.