Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired Susan L Smith University of Pennsylvania Press 251pp £15.95 0-8122-1449-8 0812214498.

Based on oral histories, government records and manuscript collections at colleges which have historically been seen as black, Sick and 'Tired of Being Sick and Tired charts black women's health activism in America between 1890 and 1950. Arguing that health reform was a cornerstone of early black civil rights activity in the US, it provides fascinating insights into the work and influence of black women working as nurses and midwives. Parts of it make sobering reading, not least the account of the involvement of a black public health nurse in an experiment over four decades whichwithheld treatment from black men with syphilis - the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study in Alabama. The nurse concerned has been defended on the grounds that as a black female nurse, she was in no position to challenge white male physicians. She herself is quoted in the text: 'I don't have any regrets. You can't regret doing what you did when you knew you were doing right.'