On the causes of fevers (1839)

mainly on the corrective mechano-therapeutics that he advocated and the various mechanical appliances that he devised. It is not possible to determine from this book how much ofthe clinic's reputation actually hinged on Schulthess's social stature, and on the fact that he co-founded and helped to edit the Zeitschrift fur orthopadische Chirurgie. Much of this book is devoted to recalling the names of Switzerland's orthopaedic worthies (which grossly distorts both their national and international stature); to listing the distinguished visitors to Schulthess's clinic (which misrepresents its contemporary importance); and, above all, to furnishing a pristine and wholly uncontextualized account of Schulthess. Lacking an index, and written without much attention to chronology, the book may fascinate past and present members of the staff of the Schulthess Institute, but it is of little use to historians. best known as an epidemiologist, was a Victorian provincial physician of enthusiasm, sensibility and intelligence, who might well have served (in fact as well as fiction) as a model for the Lydgate of Middlemarch. In a period of struggle early in his career, in 1839, having produced theses on rheumatic fever and on the spinal cord, and conducted experiments on emphysema, Budd entered for a prize scraped together by the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association. The prescribed subject, continued fever, was indicative of current practical and theoretical concerns. William Davidson won with an exposition ofcompromise solutions, which Budd himself, characteristically, called "well overloaded". Budd came second with a "philosophical" analysis making approving reference to such authors as J. C. Prichard and Henry Holland. This essay almost brazenly presented the framework ofhis later views, including his dependence upon analogy, his rejection of "inclusive" modes of reasoning including the statistical, and his use of smallpox as the type of all epidemic disease. Budd's later publications show not so much changes of view as his efforts to find means of substantiation congenial to his contemporaries, who, like the judges of 1890, pressed for "facts". Until Smith's discovery of the essay, all this had to be inferred from Budd's own later use ofits contents. The manuscript (80 pp. as printed) is anonymous, but, as Smith clearly shows, there can be no doubt as to its authorship. It is not simply the essay as submitted, but carries the judges' comments (rather scanty) and more lavish annotations made at different times by Budd himself. Smith's meticulous editing brings out the interest of …