Book Notes

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. Alle de Brieven van Antoni van Leeuwenhoek / The Collected Letters of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. Edited, illustrated, and annotated by a committee of Dutch scientists. Vol. 13, 1700–1701. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Swets and Zeitlinger, 1993. 413 pp. Ill. $280.90; Hfl. 350.00.

This edition of Leeuwenhoek’s letters began publication in 1939 and has continued with little change in editorial policy (the most notable being the exclusive use—beginning with volume 3 [1948]—of translations into twentieth-century English, rather than reprinting available seventeenth- and eighteenth-century translations). The present volume includes twenty-one letters written by Leeuwenhoek and one letter to Leeuwenhoek from Hans Sloane. Almost all have previously been published in Dutch, in Latin translation, or—in English—in the Philosophical Transactions. The topics center on Leeuwenhoek’s interest in microscopy, but they also include other observations relative to natural history. For each letter, the editors provide the location of the manuscript (if extant), a list of the places where it was previously published, a summary, a description of figures known to have been included with the letter, miscellaneous general remarks, and footnotes dealing with specific points. Following the letters are a bibliography, several appendices, and a name index.

Samuel S. White. Samuel S. White Catalogue of Dental Instruments and Equipment. Introduction by Audrey B. Davis. Norman Surgery Series, no. 8. San Francisco: Norman Publishing in association with Smithsonian Institution Libraries, 1995. xxxviii + 408 pp. Ill. $150.00. (Available from Norman Publishing, 720 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102-2502; tel.: 415-781-6402; fax: 415-781-5507; e-mail: orders@jnorman.com.)

Samuel Stockton White (1822–79), trained as a dentist and a porcelain tooth maker, opened an office and began selling his own false teeth in Philadelphia in the 1840s. By the time the original edition of this catalog appeared in 1876, the Samuel S. White Company was the major American manufacturer of false teeth and of a wide range of other dental equipment and apparatus. The publication of this volume, yet another in Jeremy Norman’s instrument catalog reprint series, will guarantee the availability to scholars of the White catalog for some time. The value of this edition is further enhanced by the excellent introduction prepared by Audrey Davis, formerly of the Smithsonian Institution and now exhibition curator at the University of Maryland’s National Museum of Dentistry.

Dennis Peterson and Glenda Wiese. Chiropractic: An Illustrated History. St. Louis: Mosby, 1995. xiii + 509 pp. Ill. $83.95.

This opulent book, which will require a sturdy coffee table to hold it, contains chapters by chiropractic practitioners, journal editors, and administrators. It also includes a chapter entitled “American Medicine in the Nineteenth Century,” by William G. Rothstein, and an epilogue by Walter I. Wardwell. Other chapters concern Daniel David Palmer, the founder of chiropractic; chiropractic adjusting techniques and equipment; “radiography and chiropractic spinography”; chiropractic schools, colleges, and professional associations; women in chiropractic; and chiropractic as it has been practiced around the world.

The book includes a bibliography and almost one thousand illustrations, many in color. From endpapers to typography, it is beautifully produced.

Paul Weindling, ed. International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939. Cambridge History of Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xvi + 337 pp. $69.95.

This book comprises the following chapters: “Introduction: Constructing International Health between the Wars,” by Paul Weindling; “‘Custodians of the Sacred Fire’: The ICRC and the Postwar Reorganisation of the International Red Cross,” by John F. Hutchinson; “Red Cross Organizational Politics, 1918–1922: Relations of Dominance and the Influence of the United States,” by Bridget Towers; “The League of Nations Health Organisation,” by Martin David Dubin; “Assistance and Not Mere Relief: The Epidemic Commission of the League of Nations, 1920–1923,” by Marta Aleksandra Bali′nska; “Wireless Wars in the Eastern Arena: Epidemiological Surveillance, Disease Prevention, and the Work of the Eastern Bureau of the League of Nations Health Organisation, 1925–1942,” by Lenore Manderson; and “Social Medicine at the League of Nations Health Organisation and the International Labour Office Compared,” by Paul Weindling.

Also: “The Social Section and Advisory Committee on Social Questions of the League of Nations...