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From Snake Oil to Medicine: Pioneering Public Health (Healing Society: Disease, Medicine, and History) |
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From Snake Oil to Medicine: Pioneering Public Health (Healing Society: Disease, Medicine, and History)
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by R. Alton Lee
Sales Rank: 1155489
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List Price: $49.95
$49.95
At Amazon
on 6-16-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 248 pages
Published by: Praeger Publishers March 30, 2007
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0275994678
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0275994679
Book Dimensions:
9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
Weighs: 1.2 pounds
Product Review
Lee revisits Kansas doctor Samuel J. Crumbine and his pioneering educational campaign for public health from the post-Civil War era to the 1950s. Inspired by the Progressive reform spirit of the time, Dr. Crumbine and the Kansas Department of Health paved a way to promote pure water and food and sanitary reforms against public drinking cups and towels, rats and flies, and spitting. Despite political turmoil, the Crumbine team continued to strengthen the medical profession by instructing child hygiene programs ("Warren Car") and leading national battles against tuberculosis and venereal diseases. Lee's major contribution is spotlighting a scarcely studied topic in mainstream academia: western frontier medical practices and the health reform movement disseminating the latest germ theory to the public. Recommended. General and undergraduate collections.Choice
R. Alton Lee has written a detailed account of the professional life of a pioneer in public health, Dr. Samuel J. Grumbine. Lee not only tells the story of a life's work but shows that the events Grumbine initiated and witnessed were the roots of public health and continue to give the field direction and meaning.Lee has given us far more than a story of a rural primary care physician who succeeded on greater platforms. Grumbine used his own experience as a rural practitioner to convince President Hoover to advocate federal support for local health units, raising public health to new importance at a pivotal time.Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA)
Product Description
Without Samuel J. Crumbine and his Kansas Department of Health, diseases festering in water sources, food, and the common towel at the turn of the 20th century would have caused thousands of deaths in the United States and beyond. Crumbine and his associates paved the way to better treatment of tuberculosis and other common diseases. This well-written account leads the reader down a path of crucial medical advancements. Samuel J. Crumbine was a medical educator without peer, who used his department of health to disseminate the latest developments he and others throughout the world were achieving in public health. He found it necessary to propagandize a skeptical and sometimes hostile public to accept the germ theory, the idea that invisible microbes were making them ill and that they should clean up their environment and their food and water sources. He had to convince the public to rely on modern medicine, not snake oil and other miracle cures for a healthy living. R. Alton Lee's historical account might offer insight in today's threat of Bird Flu and other recent medical threats for any reader.
Reader Reviews
This is another interesting biography by R. Alton Lee. A few years ago I had enjoyed reading his book about another, not so admired, Kansan, Dr. John R. Brinkley (The bizarre careers of John R. Brinkley. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky; 2002.) The current book by Lee is about a much revered Kansan, Dr. Samuel Crumbine (1862-1954). During much of the early twentieth century Dr. Crumbine safeguarded public health through his pioneering work on control of infectious diseases and prevention of food and medicinal adulteration. He served as the Secretary of Kansas Board of Health from 1904 to 1924. Public health concepts and practices, now well-established and taken for granted, were novel and even daring then. As in contemporary times, the measures he took to ensure public health and welfare sometimes challenged corporate interests. Popular and beloved as he was, Crumbine nonetheless gathered a few political foes. Unperturbed he forged ahead with his plans towards prevention and control of epidemics such as the flu pandemic. His campaign against the fly ("swat the Fly"), against public spitting ("Don't Spit on the Sidewalk") and sharing of water cups were models for universal adoption. All of these facets of Crumbine's Kansas days are thoroughly documented in this well-referenced and highly readable volume. It starts with accounts of his spicy experiences from late 19th century frontier Dodge City practice and concludes with his work in New York City from 1920s to mid-20th century. His years in Topeka, Kansas take up goodly portions of the volume. Lee's detailing of Crumbine's relations with Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover is fascinating. There are many period illustrations that liven up the text. Public health was an unfamiliar concept then. Its practitioners were few and their salaries meager. Clinical epidemiology, a later off-shoot and currently a respected academic pursuit, was an unknown construct. Crumbine was far ahead of his times and a nationally respected figure. The ambience of the times is brought out well by Lee. Crumbine's struggles and successes are very relevant to our own times. We also face similar bifid junctures often. Does public good overtake individual preferences; are corporate goals in conflict with individual citizen's health? We miss the steering influence of Crumbine as we deliberate even today trying to bridge these enduring opposites. What I would have liked to see is a bit more of what Crumbine had personally felt during his struggles and triumphs. How did he cope with his stresses, what did he discuss with his wife and trusted friends, did he harbor doubts? This paucity of personal interpretation - I suppose a psychobiography - is a bit disappointing. Lee would have been an ideal person to render such an analysis. Would it have angered, or just annoyed, him to see his name repeatedly misspelled in an otherwise excellent recent (October 2007) review of this book in a respected medical journal? This is an admirable biographic account. It will surely fascinate those with an interest and pride in Kansas history. It gives an exceptional view of the early decades of public health both in Kansas and the nation. It could even inspire those facing decision making dilemmas between public good and private interests.
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From Snake Oil to Medicine: Pioneering Public Health (Healing Society: Disease, Medicine, and History)
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