Urban disease and mortality in nineteenth-century England

transit ofVenus in that year. This was an important contribution to international collaboration in science in those early days when America was little known for its contributions to scientific achievement, apart from Franklin's important studies of electricity. The observatory found a further niche in American history when it was the scene of"a great concourse ofpeople" on 8 July 1776. From the stage of the observatory, Colonel John Nixon publicly read the Declaration of Independence to the crowd, who responded with three huzzas. It was John Adams who declared that the Declaration had been proclaimed "from that Awfull Stage". Bedini's account of the search for the long-lost observatory and for the instruments it housed is one of the most illuminating of these essays. Benjamin Henry Latrobe, America's first professional architect and engineer, is described in a revealing sketch by Edward C. Carter, and there is then a compelling analysis by Marvin E. Wolfgang of attitudes to imprisonment in Pennsylvania between 1787 and 1829. 'Cotton textiles and industrialism', by Thomas C. Cochrane, introduces the Industrial Revolution in America to the reader, and this topic is continued by Brooke Hindle in an outstanding anaylsis under the title 'The American Industrial Revolution through its survivals'. Beautifully illustrated, it provides fascinating insights into the development of technology in nineteenth-century America. Joseph Ewen then describes the books belonging to Benjamin Smith Barton, the largest natural history collection in America before 1815. The essays continue with an account of the foreign members who were Biological Scientists belonging to the American Philosophical Society during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by Bentley Glass, and concludes witha biographical sketch of Louis Agassiz as an early embryologist in America by Jane M. Oppenheimer. Born in Switzerland, Agassiz emigrated to America in 1846, and he therefore belonged to a different century from that which he has so engaged Whit Bell's attention. To anyone who enjoys the variety offered by a book ofessays, this is an outstanding collection. For those unfamiliar with American history, it gives rare insights into the affairs ofearly America. There is naturally a particular orientation to the intellectual, scientific, and technological achievements ofPhiladelphia, to which so much ofWhit Bell's work has been directed. It will give great pleasure not only to Dr Bell's friends but to all who are interested in the history ofmedicine and science in the United States. The title is appropriate and the illustrations well chosen. One of the best features of the book is the frontispiece, a delightful portrait ofDr Bell that illustrates so well his generous character. It also gives a glimpse of him as "that rare combination of outgoing enthusiastic teacher with a warm interest in people and a quiet painstaking scholar", which was how the American Philosophical Society described him upon his election to membership in 1964. Christopher Booth Clinical Research Centre, Harrow