Story of a great hospital. The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh 1729-1929

historical argument it is surprising to find McKeown not giving an inch to recent work which suggests that an important factor in population change in the eighteenth century may have been increased fertility (through earlier marriage) rather than decreased mortality alone. Whatever the case, his overwhelming arguments for the influence of environmental change on health in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries cannot but be convincing. Here, however, McKeown parts company with other medical men who have thought about the matter. It follows he contends that such conclusions demand radical questioning of the status and role of the medical profession and the allocation of resources. A proposition that is likely to leave him as a prophet with honour in his own profession. A. Logan Turner's Story ofa great hospital was first published in 1937 and has been reissued to commemorate the founding of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in 1729. The reappearance ofthis scarce and useful volume is to be welcomed. To begin with it is clear that Logan Turner's project is quite out of harmony with current historiographic trends in the history of medicine. His aims, as his title suggests, were to present the contemporary medical community in Edinburgh with a distinguished pedigree, a task none too difficult since the Infirmary had been staffed by such intellects and showmen as the Monros, Cullen, Christison, Syme, and Lister. Logan Turner, however, was meticulous in his method; he scrupulously followed the minutes of the Infirmary, the College of Physicians, and the College of Surgeons (though not the Town Council) to produce a precise and readable narrative. It is the attention to detail that will render the work most pleasing to current scholars though they may feel less comfortable with the straightforward interpretation they are offered. Scottish Enlightenment studies, particularly in science, have snowballed in the last few years and now offer a context that was unavailable to Turner for viewing the founding of the institution. The major protagonists are rightly identified in his work, John Monro and his enfant terrible Alexander, George Drummond on the Town Council, and the College of Physicians. What is lacking is a picture of the broader economic and cultural framework within which a plan for a new hospital could flourish. Turner's determination to write the history of a great hospital also, at times, produced a scotoma in other areas of the interpretive field. All parties to the …