Wellcome witnesses to twentieth century medicine, vol. 2. Making the human body transparent: the impact of nuclear magnetic resonance and magnetic resonance imaging. Research in general practice. Drugs in psychiatric practice. The MRC Common Cold Unit

indoor relief only. Outdoor relief was eventually permitted under stringent conditions from late 1847, but the costs were much resented by ratepayers. Readers of this journal will be particularly interested in 0 Grada's analysis of Sir William Wilde's 'Table of deaths', published in the 1851 census. This table holds no surprises for nutritionists familiar with the epidemiology of famine-induced diseases, but it offers interesting parallels to (and some differences from) disease patterns in third-world countries. 0 Grada ponders the role of medicine in countering disease. The verdict is not comforting. It failed, flawed by the lack of understanding of how infections were transmitted and overwhelmed by the lack of basic hygiene. There are many good things in this chapter, notably the discussion of the age and sex differences in mortality; women survived better than men, a feature paralleled in third-world countries today. Many writers have been appalled that food continued to be exported during the famine. 0 Grada points out that farmers and merchants owned the corn and if it had been compulsorily retained in the country the famished population would have been unable to afford it. Ireland in fact became a net importer of grain during the famine, but imports were a drop in the ocean compared with the loss of the potatoes. 0 Grada's interests are economic and demographic, and nationalist historians will not be happy with his explanations of (not justification for) the often callous behaviour of government, landlords, farmers and merchants. But none will write a better book. (eds), Wellcome witnesses to twentieth century medicine, voL 2. Making the human body transparent: the impact of nuclear magnetic resonance and magnetic resonance imaging. Research in general practice. Drugs in psychiatric practice. The History of Twentieth Century Medicine Group's witness seminars are creating an extremely valuable set of historical sources about a mid-twentieth-century era which, though near in time, appears surprisingly distant, not just in relation to the strikingly different power of late twentieth-century medical science, but in relation to the much greater complexities of enabling, regulatory, or funding structures within which medicine now operates. In addition, the brief biographies and publications cited in footnotes are a useful reference tool. There are certain weaknesses in this evidence. There is a strong in-built bias against the testimony of users or patients in favour of that by doctors and scientists. Again, although there has been a good attempt to research …