Lois N. Magner. 393 pages. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc.; 1992. $55.00.

In 1991, the American Association for the History of Medicine published a compilation of medical history course curricula that showed the dearth of single-volume texts in this field. Of those available, most are out of date or uneven, skewed toward the topical expertise of their authors. Magner's book seeks to rectify this problem by providing a concise survey of medical history, from paleopathology to contemporary medical practices and research, aimed at the nonspecialist.

The book is organized in roughly chronological fashion. Each chapter examines one or more themes in depth, with their implications followed through succeeding periods of time. Magner discusses, for example, William Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood in its seventeenth-century context. Additional sections of this chapter trace the history of therapeutic bloodletting, blood transfusion, heart transplants, and the discovery of blood groups. The author chose this format to promote critical thinking about medicine in an audience unfamiliar with medical history. This goal was also her rationale for including chapters on non-Western medical traditions and for weaving women, both as healers and patients, into the historical tapestry. Her emphasis is on medicine and its role in society rather than on cataloguing the great doctors and medical advances in chronological succession.

Magner avoids medical jargon, presenting subjects lucidly and with a sense of humor. The technical aspects of the book—chapter subheadings, index, illustrations, and a list of additional readings for each chapter—enhance its usefulness. Its price, however, seems extraordinarily steep. Perhaps the publisher will consider producing a less expensive paperback version.

For years many scholars predicted that a well-balanced, single-volume history of medicine for the laity would never be written because no historian could be sufficiently expert in every field in every era to write such a comprehensive text. Magner has disproved this theory and deserves considerable praise for synthesizing the best recent scholarship. Her book is as welcome as it is long overdue for this important subfield of medicine and history.