American plagues : lessons from our battles with disease / Stephen H. Gehlbach.

New York ; London : McGraw-Hill, Medical Pub. Div., [2005], ©2005.

viii, 273 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Gunpowder and calomel : Benjamin Rush and the malignant yellow fever -- Doctors and ministers : smallpox in Boston, 1721 -- Noddle's Island experiment : Benjamin Waterhouse and vaccination -- Scourge of the Middle West : autumnal fever and Daniel Drake -- Improving the numbers : Lemuel Shattuck's report -- Adirondack cure : consumption and Edward Trudeau -- The beginning and the end : epidemic poliomyelitis -- A cancer grows : Edward R. Murrow and the cigarette -- Searching America's heart : the Framingham study --Continuing story : present plagues.