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by Dorothy Porter, 376 pp, $85, ISBN 0-415-12244-9, paper, $25.99, ISBN 0-415-20036-9, New York, NY, Routledge, 1999.

JAMA. 1999;282:1589.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

"For many students," this book begins, "the idea of studying the history of public health provokes a very big yawn." Despite the light-hearted opener, the following pages largely deliver on that promise. It is a pity, because the story of the great plagues, of disease and pestilence, of public filth and industrial poisoning—and the valiant social and political efforts to control these threats—can make for captivating reading. There are a number of popular books that describe these in rich historical detail. This is not one of them.

When the author defines individuals (vs the public) as a "subsidiary analytical category to collective social action," you know you are in for a long night. Much of the text is freighted with such vacuous sentences as: "The sociologicalization of health and disease in Soviet social hygiene was linked to its political nature." If the heavy-handed academic language isn't enough to put you . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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