Dictionary of medical eponyms

As U.S. drug control policy hardened to a prohibitionist stance in the wake of international control legislation and the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act, the female drug user remained a barely visible part of the drug scene. The hard line on drugs extended into the 1950s; it was only after the modification of national policy towards drug use during the 1960s, with an acceptance of the disease view of addiction and the consequent rise of methadone maintenance, that women started to emerge in their own right. In perhaps the most original part of the book, Kandall traces the emergence of women focused research and other programmes after the establishment of the National Institute of Drug Abuse in 1974. NIDA's use of epidemiological national surveys made the role of women in drug use clearer; and the womens' movement also took this up as an issue. But the Reagan administration saw a harsher line imposed. Concern about drug use in pregnancy was revived, fuelled by the role of drug use in the transmission of HIV/AIDS, and leading to cases such as the Johnson one. This is an interesting book, packed with historical "fact". Kandall and his research assistant have worked hard, as he acknowledges. I would have preferred a little more standing back from the material. It would have been useful to have some general themes outlined and contextualized. How problems emerge and who defines them are not part of the book's agenda. Women and drug use have emerged both as a "risk group" for policy makers and as a variously defined feminist issue since the 1970s. Both epidemiology and psychology have been involved as explanatory frameworks. The focus on women as mothers mirrors the turn of the century concern for womens' role in the "future of the race". The tension between the objective ongoing "realities" and dimensions of female drug use and its policy and public definition is not explicitly addressed. Kandall's final chapter, which might have pulled together some of these themes, is directly focused on possible modifications in current U.S. policy. But in general this is a valuable first step in analysis of an important historical and contemporary dimension of drug use. This dictionary presents some 2,185 personal names, biographies and descriptions of the diseases and similar medical items which go by these names. It is clearly a labour of love, and includes unexpected and surprising information, such as the …