Annotated Bibliography Health Article

Annotated Bibliography

This bibliography is divided into three sections. The first two contain important historical and modern works on public health, from 2000 <B.<C.<E. to the present. These works are presented chronologically so as to give a sense of the development of public health, and of the various disciplines that make up the field. The third section is devoted to works on the history of health, medicine, and public health. These are listed in alphabetical order, by author. It is hoped that this annotated bibliography will aid the reader in understanding the extraordinary progress of the field of public health.

CLASSICS OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Code of Hammurabi. This code, dating from c. 2000 <B.<C.<E., is among the oldest extant medical documents. It suggests ways to stay healthy, and includes rules of behavior and fee schedules for the priest-physicians of ancient Babylon, providing interesting insights into Babylonian civilization. It is summarized in H. E. Sigerist, History of Medicine, Vol. 1, Primitive and Archaic Medicine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951).

Hippocrates. "Airs, Waters, Places" and "On Epidemics," in Hippocratic Writings, ed. G. R. Lloyd (New York: Penguin, 1978). The surviving documents from the medical school of Hippocrates of Cos, located at Epidaurus c. 440–330 <B.<C.<E., reveal some of the best features of classical Greek civilization. They cover many aspects of medicine, including clinical descriptions of diseases, as well as the oath that is still used as the foundation for good medical conduct and much teaching of medical ethics. "Airs, Waters, Places" was the first text on environmental health; it includes ideas on how individuals and communities can protect good health. "On Epidemics" contains many good descriptions of contagious and other diseases of public health importance.

Regimen Sanitas Salernitarum. Translated by P. Parente as The Regime of Health of the Medical School of Salerno (New York: Vantage, 1967). First published in 1484, the material gathered in this text of the Salerno medical school dates from the late thirteenth century and consists of double-rhymed Latin hexameters describing many sensible dietetic and hygienic precepts, including avoidance of overeating and the desirability of personal cleanliness.

Fracastorius (Girolamo Fracastoro). De contagione (Venice: Lucaeantonij Iuntae Florentini, 1546). Translated by W. C. Wright as On Contagion (New York and London: Putnam, 1930). This is the first systematic description of ways infection can be transmitted—by direct contact, via infected items such as clothing and utensils, or by droplets, as in coughing and sneezing. Fracastorius did not, however, identify vector-borne transmission or the role of contaminated water and food. Fracastorius also wrote a mock-heroic poem, Syphilis, sive morbis gallicus (1530), about a swineherd, Syphilis, afflicted with the disease that ever since has carried his name. Fracastorius recognized that this disease is sexually transmitted and he suggested that diseases might be transmitted by invisible particles, and was therefore ahead of his time in hinting at a "germ theory" of disease.

Graunt, John. Natural and Political Observations, Mentioned in a Following Index, and Made upon the Bills of Mortality (London, 1662; reprint, North Stratford, NH: Ayer Company Publishers, 1975). Graunt was the first to use records of deaths and their causes to analyze the state of a population's health. His analysis of the London population showed that male mortality rates were higher than those of females at all ages from birth onward, revealed urban-rural differences in mortality rates, and showed the fluctuations of those rates due to epidemics, notably of the plague. Graunt's work was the founding text for the science of vital statistics.

Petty, William. An Essay Concerning the Multiplication of Mankind; Together with Another Essay on Political Arithmetic (London and Dublin: 1682). Petty's work emulated Graunt's. He examined records of ages and causes of death in London, Dublin, and other cities, emphasizing the economic implications of premature deaths among those who produced the nation's wealth.

Halley, Edmund. "An Estimate of the Degrees of Mortality of Mankind, Drawn from Curious Tables of the Births and Funerals at the City of Breslaw, with an Attempt to Ascertain the Price of Annuities upon Lives." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 17 (1683):596–610. An important advance in vital statistics, this work provided the foundation for life insurance and the work of actuaries.

Ramazzini, Bernardino. De morbis artificum diatriba (Modena: 1713). Translated by W. C. Wright as Diseases of Workers (New York: Academy of Medicine, 1964). A descriptive catalogue of the illnesses—mostly attributable to exposure on the job—commonly found among workers in many occupations. This is the first text on occupational medicine.

Lind, James. A Treatise of the Scurvy (Edinburgh: 1753; reprint, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1953). This work is often cited as the earliest example of a clinical trial. Lind used pairs of sailors who were allocated various dietary regimens to demonstrate that small daily doses of lime juice prevented the onset of scurvy on long sea voyages. Lind thus showed also that this disease was not contagious but associated with a dietary deficiency.

Frank, Johan Pieter. System einer vollständigen medicinischen Polizey (Vienna and Budapest: 1779). Translated by E. Lesky as A System of Complete Medical Police (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976). Frank's massive, multivolume work discusses many aspects of personal and public health and prescribes rules and laws for such practices as city cleanliness, the inspection of food premises, and the regulation of prostitution. It also contains many suggestions about diet and lifestyle. It is the foundation text for public health law and adopts a paternalist approach that has prevailed until at least the middle of the twentieth century.

Jenner, Edward. An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae (London: 1798; reprint, London: Dawsons, 1966). Jenner describes his successful experiment with cowpox vaccine in this short book, which may be the most important single work in the field of public health published anywhere in the past millennium. This work led directly to the World Health Organization campaign responsible for the eradication of smallpox, among the most deadly of all the contagious epidemic diseases, less than two hundred years later.

Malthus, Thomas. An Essay on the Principle of Population, or a View of Its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness with an Inquiry into Our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal or Mitigation of the Evils Which It Occasions (London: J. Johnson, 1798; reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Malthus uses simple arithmetical calculations to show that human reproductive rates would sooner or later outstrip the capacity of food supplies to sustain the numbers in the population. His method is sound, but his predictions of imminent famine are invalid because he does not allow for the increases in food production in the Americas and Australia in the nineteenth century. All that may have been wrong is his time scale: The Malthusian crisis could yet overtake humanity.

Louis, Pierre Charles Alexandre. Recherches anatomico-pathologiques sur la phtisie (Paris: C. Gabon, 1825). Translated by W. H. Walshe as Researches on Phthisis: Anatomical, Pathological, and Therapeutical (London: Sydenham Society, 1844). This work and others by Louis laid the foundations for statistical analysis of medical data and was instrumental in establishing the science of medical statistics.

Henle, Friedrich Gustav Jacob. Von den Miasmen und Contagien (Berlin: 1840). Translated by G. Rosen as On Miasmata and Contagia (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1938). Henle's critical analysis of the characteristics of contagion is among the works that stimulated the rise of the germ theory of disease.

Chadwick, Edwin. Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1842; reprint, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1965). A monumental work by a dedicated civil servant, Chadwick's report describes the appalling and unsanitary conditions under which the vast majority of people lived in the new cities that grew up in the early phases of the Industrial Revolution. This work set the scene for new legislation regulating housing conditions, and was thus seminal in transforming sanitary and hygienic conditions that were the most important single contributing factor for the improvements in public health in the second half of the nineteenth century in Britain and in other industrial nations that followed Britain's lead.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell. "The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever." New England Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery 1 (1842):503–540. Holmes, a Boston physician, published in this paper the evidence that women in child labor who were attended by physicians who washed their hands before attending them were much less likely to get puerperal fever, which at that time caused many maternal deaths soon after childbirth. Unfortunately, most of his colleagues ignored his findings and women continued to die of this preventable obstetric disaster.

Shattuck, Lemuel. Report to the Committee of the City Council Appointed to Obtain the Census of Boston for the Year 1845 (Boston: 1846; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1976). This work is a comprehensive census assessment of the city of Boston in the mid-nineteenth century, a landmark in statistical census data and its contribution to public health. It includes twenty-two sections on various features of Boston's population and living conditions, including birthplace, water supply, education, health, occupation, wealth, marriages, and deaths.

Semmelweis, Ignaz. Die Aetiologie, der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des Kindbetfiebers (Pest, Wien, and Leipzig: C.A. Hartleben's Verlags-Expedition, 1861). Translated by F. P. Murphy as The Etiology, the Concept, and the Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever (Birmingham, AL: Classics of Medicine Library, 1981). Semmelweis's work is among the first uses of epidemiological methods to establish the causal relationship of behavior (e.g., personal hygiene) to occurrence of a deadly disease, puerperal sepsis, which was killing many women whose child labor was supervised by physicians who did not wash their hands. These findings, like those of Holmes, were rejected by the conservative medical establishment in Vienna. However, Semmelweis's work, published fifteen years after he wrote it, is epidemiologically excellent.

Drake, Daniel. A Systematic Treatise, Historical, Etiological, and Practical on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America (Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Grambo, & Co., 1854; reprint, New York: Franklin Burt Publisher, 1971). A classic of early American medicine, initially published in installments from 1850 through 1854, this is a descriptive account of the findings from a survey Drake conducted to investigate the health and sanitation problems encountered by pioneering settlers as they colonized the American West.

Shattuck, Lemuel, et al. Report of the Sanitary Commission of Massachusetts (1850; reprint, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950). The American replication of Chadwick's report, this work was likewise instrumental in leading to improved public health in the industrial heartland of the United States in the late nineteenth century.

Snow, John. On the Mode of Communication of Cholera (London: Churchill, 1855). This monograph describes Snow's rigorous logical analysis of the facts that led him to conduct his epidemiological investigations establishing the role of drinking water polluted with sewage in the transmission of the agent that causes cholera. It is a seminal work on epidemiology that can still be used to teach the subject today.

Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (London: John Murray, 1859; reprint, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990). The most significant work on human biology of the past millennium. Darwin presents evidence that establishes beyond any doubt that living creatures, including humans, have undergone prolonged evolutionary changes extending over several billion years since life first appeared on Earth. Humans have been shown by subsequent paleontological discoveries to have evolved over the past 4 million to 6 million years.

Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Hospitals (London: Longman 1863; reprint, New York: Garland, 1989). Nightingale, famous as the founder of modern nursing practice, was a major figure in public health and vital statistics, a member of the London Epidemiological Society, and a prominent social reformer. In this, her most important book, she describes and discusses hygienic design of hospitals and outlines the ways in which records of patient care in hospitals could be used to compile sickness statistics.

Galton, Francis. Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences (London: Macmillan, 1869; reprint, New York: St. Martins, 1978). A classic of human genetics that treats the topic with attention to mathematical probabilities, this work has become a template for later works on biostatistics, such as Karl Pearson's equally significant work, The Grammar of Science (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895; reprint, Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1969).

Farr, William. Vital Statistics; a Memorial Volume of Selections from the Reports and Writings of William Farr, ed. N. A. Humphreys (London: The Sanitary Institute, 1885; reprint, Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1975). Farr's many contributions to vital statistics and epidemiology are scattered throughout his annual reports and other writings. Humphreys compiled them in this commemorative volume.

Pasteur, Louis. Oeuvres (Paris: Masson, 1922–1939). Pasteur's scientific papers appeared over many years in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Summaries in English are found in a 1952 biography by René Dubos, Louis Pasteur: Freelance of Science (Boston: Little, Brown).

Koch, Robert. Gesammelte Werke (Leipzig: G. Thieme, 1912). Koch's prolific publications are scattered among many sources and are not readily accessible. Several summary accounts of his life and work are available. Koch made his major discoveries, including the tubercle bacillus and the cholera vibrio, in the 1880s. One good recent account in English, with summaries of key contributions, appears in Alfred S. Evans, Causation and Disease (New York: Plenum, 1993), pp. 18–31.

Virchow, Rudolph Ludwig Karl. Gesammelte Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der offentlichen Medicin und der Seuchenlehre (Berlin: A. Hirschwald, 1879). Translated by R. Rather as Collected Essays on Public Health and Epidemiology (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1985). This two-volume collection contains many of Virchow's most important contributions to public health, mostly dating from the last three decades of the nineteenth century.

Finlay, Carlos Eduardo. Fiebre amarilla experimental (Havana: Manzana Central, 1904). Translated by R. Matas as The Mosquito Hypothetically Considered as an Agent in the Transmission of Yellow Fever Poison (Chapel Hill, NC: Delta Omega Society, 1989). This work by the great Cuban physician and epidemiologist Finlay led to the work undertaken by Finlay and Walter Reed that elucidated the epidemiology of yellow fever.

Simon, John. English Sanitary Institutions Reviewed in Their Course of Development and in Some of Their Political and Social Relations (London: Cassell, 1890; reprint, New York: Johnson Reprint Company, 1970). Simon was the first Chief Medical Officer of England and Wales, a physician, and a public health specialist. Of his many books, this best summarizes his life's work and his professional outlook.

Ross, Ronald. "The Role of the Mosquito in the Evolution of the Malaria Parasite." Lancet 2 (1898):488–489. Among Ross's numerous publications, this is the most important, being the first description of the essential role of mosquitoes in the transmission of malaria.

Goldberger, Joseph. Goldberger on Pellagra, ed. M. Terris (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1964). This is a collection of Goldberger's papers on pellagra, a common seasonal disease in the southern United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Goldberger, sometimes with coauthors, wrote many papers describing his research, establishing that dietary deficiency of vitamin B₂ caused pellagra.

Sheppard-Towner Act. In passing the Sheppard-Towner Act (the Infant and Maternity Act of 1921), the U.S. Congress made funds available, to be matched by the states, to assist in developing maternal and child health programs throughout the country. Opposition by medical associations and others to this "intrusion" of the federal government into medical care led to the act's lapse in 1927, but the precedent led to its reestablishment in the 1935 Social Security Act.

Winslow, Charles-Edward Amory. The Evolution and Significance of the Modern Public Health Campaign (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1923). A seminal work on the framework of organized public health services, this volume set the scene for public health in the industrial nations, especially in the United States, throughout much of the remainder of the twentieth century. Winslow was one of the leading creative thinkers in public health in the early twentieth century.

Sydenstricker, Edgar. The Challenge of Facts; Selected Public Health Papers of Edgar Sydenstricker, ed. R. V. Kasius (New York: Prodist, 1974). Sydenstricker was one of the leading figures in American public health in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during which time he brought to the discipline a renewed intellectual rigor combined with epidemiological insights.

Frost, Wade Hampton. Papers of Wade Hampton Frost, M.D.; A Contribution to Epidemiological Methods, ed. K. F. Maxcy (New York: Commonwealth Fund, 1977). Frost (1880–1938), the leading epidemiologist of his time, was a professor and head of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Fleming, Alexander. "On the Antibacterial Action of Cultures of a Penicillium, with Special Reference to Their Use in the Isolation of B Influenzae." British Journal of Experimental Pathology 10 (1929):226–236. The paper reports Fleming's original observation, which led to the development by Fleming, Howard Florey, and Ernst Chain of penicillin, the first true antibiotic.

Watson, James D., and Crick, Francis H. "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid." Nature 171 (4356)(1953):737–738. This is the first paper describing the molecular structure of DNA, from which the science of molecular genetics and the human genome project have developed.