Book Notes

Daniel V. Elerick, comp., and Rose A. Tyson, ed. Human Paleopathology and Related Subjects: An International Bibliography. San Diego: Museum of Man, 1997. xx + 716 pp. Ill. $75.00 (paperbound + 6 disks).

“More than thirty years ago,” writes Eve Cockburn, “[Saul] Jarcho saw that indexing the complete literature of paleopathology could be more easily achieved by the use of computers, and given the pace of paleopathological research during those years, it is hardly surprising that this computerized paleopathology bibliography has been ten years in the making” (p. xvi). The diskettes that accompany this volume, which incorporates all previous bibliographies, allow the immediate retrieval of “any subset your heart desires” (p. xvi). The volume also contains three introductory essays: “An Introduction to Paleopathology,” by Eve Cockburn; “The Tradition of International Research: The South American Example,” by Marvin J. Allison and Enrique Gerszten; and “The Multidisciplinary Nature of Paleopathology,” by Charles F. Merbs.

Danielle Gourevitch, ed. Médecins érudits de Coray à Sigerist. De l’archéologie à l’histoire. Paris: De Boccard, 1995. 230 pp. Ill. F 200.00 (paperbound).

This collection of essays about scholarly physicians emerges from a colloquium held in 1994 in Saint-Julien-en-Beaujolais, France. The subjects (and authors) are as follows: Diamantios Coray (by Jacques Jouanna), Kurt Sprengel’s edition of Dioscorides (Alain Touwaide), Laennec (Mirko D. Grmek), Salvatore de Renzi (Antonio Garzya), Julius Rosenbaum (Samuel Kottek and Danielle Gourevitch), Corneille Broeckx (Simon Byl), Franciscus Zacharias Ermerins (Anne Marie Jansen and Manfred Horstmanshoff), Ulco Cats Bussemaker (Manfred Horstmanshoff and Anne Marie Jansen), Eléonord Petrequin (Guy Sabbah and Sylvie Sabbah), Charles Victor Daremberg and Heinrich Haeser (Danielle Gourevitch), Karl Sudhoff (Thomas Rütten), and Henry Sigerist (Heinrich von Staden).

Mary Canaga Rowland. As Long As Life: The Memoirs of a Frontier Woman Doctor: Mary Canaga Rowland, 1873–1966. Edited by F. A. Loomis. Seattle: Storm Peak Press, 1995. xi + 177 pp. Ill. $11.95 (paperbound).

Mary Rowland’s great-great-nephew has compiled and edited this account, based on memoirs written by Rowland between 1930 and 1955, and on stories shared orally among her family. Born in Nebraska in 1873, Rowland married a physician, who sent her to medical school in Kansas City, Missouri. Not long after she graduated, her husband was murdered; with a young daughter to support, she returned to school, graduating from Creighton University Medical School in Omaha, Nebraska. She practiced medicine in Kansas, Idaho, and Oregon, retiring in 1927, and she died in 1966 at the age of ninety-three.

Ronald Elmer Batt, Harold Brody, Shonnie Finnegan, Richard Vaille Lee, John Naughton, Lilli Sentz, Connie Oswald Stofko, and Joyce Vána. Another Era: A Pictorial History of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1846–1996. Buffalo: School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the State University of New York at Buffalo, 1996. 192 pp. Ill. $39.95.

This pictorial history marks the sesquicentennial of the State University of New York medical school at Buffalo. The book’s nine chapters cover “Founding,” “Early Years,” “Growing,” “Educational Reform and World War I,” “Development of the Hospitals,” “Student Life,” “Between the World Wars,” “World War II, Optimism and Expansion,” “From the Merger to the Present,” and “The Future.” Text appears mainly in short bursts at the start of each chapter—the heart of the book is its illustrations, accompanied by detailed legends. These pictures extend beyond the usual portraits of founders and buildings to include such gems as a photograph of a patient at home, hooked up to a portable X-ray machine that itself is connected (through the window beside the patient’s bed) to the crank-generator of the physician’s car. A time line, bibliography, and index complete this large-format (8H by 11 inch), glossy volume.

Øivind Larsen, ed. The Shaping of a Profession: Physicians in Norway, Past and Present. Canton, Mass.: Science History Publications/USA, 1996. xiv + 619 pp. Ill. $49.95.

This huge book relies on a database that includes all 21,500 physicians who have lived and practiced in Norway from ancient times to the present. Its thirty-two chapters concentrate on the...