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KATHERINE MCCUAIG. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1999. Pp. xx, 384, illus. $55.00 cloth, $24.95 paper
Although American historians have long been interested in tuberculosis, turning increasingly to the subject in recent years, Canadian historians have paid less attention to the disease. Katherine McCuaig's book is a welcome addition to the history of tuberculosis, as well as the history of health and healthcare, in Canada.
Tracing the history of anti-tuberculosis work through the eyes of doctors and lay volunteers, McCuaig aims to explain both the medical management of TB and the 'broader social and political context' of public health measures. The book moves quickly from social reform impulses of the late-nineteenth century through the 'watershed' years of the First World War to the interwar period, where it lingers for several crucial chapters before closing with the retreat of TB in the 1950s. According to McCuaig, the campaign against tuberculosis evolved in these decades from 'the incoherent, isolated and individualistic efforts of urban social reformers armed with "enthusiasm, determination, and persistence" - but woefully little else - into...