Oglesby Paul. 220 pages. Boston: The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, in cooperation with The Harvard Medical Alumni Association, distributed by The Harvard University Press; 1992. $24.95.

Some medical students and young physicians may have heard that "the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient"; some older physicians may know that these were words from a Dr. Peabody, and a few yet older physicians may know who Francis A. Peabody was and where he taught.

Dr. Paul goes well beyond the chronologic facts of Dr. Peabody's life. He accounts for the beliefs, convictions, and actions of this exemplar of the academic physician through the setting of Peabody's years at Harvard and through the interplay Peabody had with his equally eminent and accomplished colleagues. Few readers will not be moved by the chapter "The Mastery of Self," Dr. Paul's picture of how Peabody took himself in hand after a diagnosis of malignant leiomyosarcoma, faced death, and made his remaining months as valuable as his preceding life.

The appendixes include three of Peabody's essays: "The Patient and the Man," "The Care of the Patient" (its closing passage carries the "secret of the care" aphorism), and "Notes on the Effects of Morphine" (Peabody's observations during his terminal illness). The fourth appendix carries brief biographical notes on his friends and colleagues, and the fifth is a bibliography of Peabody's papers, articles, and monographs.

This biography should be in all collections representing American medical history. More important, it should be read by all students and physicians who wish to know what has been, and is, central for the practice of medicine in any time, place, and specialty.