“Whywould you read a book about some doctor who didn’t win a Nobel Prize or isn’t Jack Kevorkian?” my friend wanted to know. I was telling him about Jake, Leon O. Jacobson, M.D.: The Life and Work of a Distinguished Medical Scientist, but he didn’t seem too impressed. Indeed, Leon O. Jacobson had a successful medical career, but the average person probably wouldn’t think of his life as flashy o...