Health, wealth and politics in Victorian Wales

but there has been neglect of systematic study of the development of medicine, and of medical services, in the smaller geographical areas-the large town, the city, or the country. It was, therefore, a pleasure to prepare to welcome to a very meagrely furnished shelf in the library Anning's History of medicine in Leeds. Regrettably, the welcome has to be somewhat qualified, for Anning's book is less a history of medicine in Leeds than a history of a number of medical institutions in Leeds. A great part of it is devoted to the General Infirmary at Leeds, the medical and surgical practice carried on there, and those associated with it. There are also, however, interesting accounts of the Dispensary and the House of Recovery, and these are of particular value, since these forms of medical institution have roused the interest of fewer medical historians than have the voluntary hospitals. Seven of the thirteen chapters in the book have already appeared in various journals, and one in a published congress report. The form adopted-the reprinting of previous articles-does lead to some repetition, which can be irritating; and it is a pity that the form of reference used in the final chapter follows the convention of the journal in which it originally appeared rather than that adopted in the remainder of the volume. These blemishes, however, are not major ones, and there are many things of interest for the general historian, medical or non-medical, as well as for those concerned with the history of Leeds itself. The note on cholera in the chapter on the House of Recovery, for example, draws attention to a report in the Leeds Intelligencer of June 1831 that rags from continental hospitals were being imported through Hull for the manuring of hop gardens, and a case of cholera occurred in Hull the following month. The account of operations undertaken in the General Infirmary in 1823 demonstrates, sometimes in horrifying detail, the immense fortitude required of surgical patients before the days of anaesthesia, and the chapter on the use of alcohol in the Infirmary shows that a primitive controlled trial could be proposed in 1883, and medical audit in 1896. The non-medical historians of Yorkshire and Leeds will be particularly grateful to Dr. Anning for having brought these articles together in an easily accessible form, but medical historians also will find profit and pleasure from reading Dr. Anning's new …