Wednesday, 27 February 2019

More Raynes Park

Having to leave the train at Raynes Park (see previous post) did have its upside in the form of some interesting books from the platform library.

Top right, a virago for BH, with 'Summer Will Show' from Sylvia Townsend Warner, a slightly risqué novel written in the 1930's and set in the 1840's.

The other three being the first and the last two volumes of a heritage medical encyclopaedia, 'The New Illustrated Medical and Health Encyclopaedia', unified family health library edition. The book was published by Odhams in 1966, apparently based on a US original, with some of the material dating back to the 1930's.

Intended for lay rather than professional use, it appears to be quite well written and includes some reasonably gory pictures, with the text appearing to have been written by a mixture of practising and academic doctors and edited by one Morris Fishbein MD. Perhaps in the US there are plenty of people who live at a good distance from the nearest doctor, so there is a stronger demand for this sort of thing than there might be here. They certainly seem to like more medical detail in their films than I care for.

In any event, a reminder of how much book illustration has come on in the intervening fifty years.

PS: it seems that Fishbein is now most remembered for his campaigns against chiropractors in particular and quacks in general, campaigns which got him into various kinds of hot water. According to his entry in Wikipedia: '... He was also notable due to his affinity for exposing quacks, notably the goat-gland surgeon John R. Brinkley, and campaigning for regulation of medical devices. His book Fads and Quackery in Healing, debunks homeopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic, Christian Science, radionics and other dubious medical practices...'.

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