Disease and discovery: a history of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, 1916-1939

endocrine control mechanisms, and, linking them all, his concepts of functional integration. His total fascination with integrative physiology was apparent from his earliest writings. This biography re-emphasizes and extends that interest in a particularly satisfactory way: the medical student who advocated the "Case method" for clinical study; the teacher who, while agonizing over his lecture style, provided a wide practical interpretation of his subject's strengths and applications; and the administrator who promoted medical education as an integral part of the university, and animal experimentation as an essential component ofmedical research. All these aspects ofCannon's life are convincingly drawn. Less sure are the sections on Cannon's domestic life and his conflicts with personalities such as Porter and Bowditch, although even here, details such as the Cannons' difficulties in starting a family are skilfully woven into the main story of the development of his research and the hazards of prolonged X-ray exposure. Unfortunately, this volume finishes in 1917, when Cannon, the father of a young family, is about to set off for Europe and war. More, much more, of his creative life remained, including his entrance into the debate about the possibility of chemical neurotransmission and the publication of his most influential book, The wisdom ofthe body, in 1939. There is no indication in this volume that the Cannon story is to be continued, but one can hope that this fruitful and rewarding biography will move into a second volume. fascinating story of its foundation set in its context of the previous and concurrent development of public health concepts, services, and training in the United States. By the late nineteenth century, there were public health departments at state and major city level; but no professional requirements for public health practice had been set, and no specialist training existed. It was largely "the province of amateurs and gentlemen", supported and harrassed by voluntary pressure groups. The attention focused on communicable diseases and the need for improved sanitation by high mortality in the Civil War was enhanced by the similar communicable disease problems of the Spanish American War and early attempts to dig the Panama Canal. By the early 1900s, industrialists were investing heavily in the southern states-railways, cotton mills-and keen to extend their interests overseas. John D. Rockefeller had created the General Education Board to promote economic, social and educational development in rural areas. G. W. Stiles convinced the Board that hookworm ("the …