Periodicals played a vital role in the developments in science and medicine that transformed nineteenth-century Britain. Proliferating from a mere handful to many hundreds of titles, they catered to audiences ranging from gentlemanly members of metropolitan societies to working-class participants in local natural history clubs. In addition to disseminating authorized scientific discovery, they fostered a sense of collective identity among their geographically dispersed and often socially disparate readers by facilitating the reciprocal interchange of ideas and information. As such, they offer privileged access into the workings of scientific communities in the period. The essays in this volume set the historical exploration of the scientific and medical periodicals of the era on a new footing, examining their precise function and role in the making of nineteenth-century science and enhancing our vision of the shifting communities and practices of science in the period. This radical rethinking of the scientific journal offers a new approach to the reconfiguration of the sciences in nineteenth-century Britain and sheds instructive light on contemporary debates about the purpose, practices, and price of scientific journals.

"When and how did public health become modern? In Governing Systems, Tom Crook re-examines this key question in the context of Victorian and Edwardian England, long regarded as one of the 'homes' of modern public health. The modernity of modern public health, Crook argues, should be located not in the rise of a centralized, bureaucratic and disciplinary State, but in the contested formation and intricate functioning of systems of governing, from the administrative to the technological. Equally, we need to embrace a dialectical understanding of modern governance, one that is rooted in the interaction of multiple levels, agents and times. Theoretically ambitious, but empirically grounded, Governing Systems will be of interest to historians of modern public health and modern Britain, as well as anyone interested in the complex gestation of the governmental dimensions of modernity"--

The half century between 1885 and 1935 witnessed an unprecedented expansion of preventive and therapeutic services offered by the state through its local authorities. Behind the expansion in public services were also profound changes in attitudes toward poverty and dependency and toward the political and cultural significance of health; changes in social policy and administration; and changes in the understanding of the causes of disease. This book examines this time of change through the ideas and experiences of one prominent participant, Sir Arthur Newsholme. Professor Eyler draws particular attention to Newsholme's role in constructing a highly successful local health programme; his tenure as the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board in Whitehall where he launched some of its boldest programmes including national health insurance; his post-retirement studies of international health systems; and his statistical and epidemiological studies and their connection to his policy recommendations.