The H.L. Mencken Baby Book, 1e

by Howard Markel, Jane A. Oski

Book by H. L. Mencken

194 pages, Hardcover

First published December 11, 1989

About the author

Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D., is the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine, professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases, professor of psychiatry, and director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. His books include the award- winning Quarantine! and When Germs Travel. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Journal of the American Medical Association. A member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, Markel lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan."

Reviews

[Varmint · Rating 3 out of 5]

proof that i will read anything by mencken. the talk of paregoric (morphine syrup) for teething seem quaint. discussion of polio and typhus are a chilling reminder of what infancy was really like at the time.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you read only one child care book this year by a doctor later convicted of investment fraud and his ghostwriter, the W.C. Fields of American literature, make it this one. But the original text is only part of this edition -- each chapter is followed by a lengthy commentary from the editors on how pediatrics has changed since 1910. And once you've gotten through Mencken's rather vividly written first chapter and a polemic on how formal education is unhealthy and stultifying for children (which could only have come from HLM), you've read the best parts, though a long section by the editors on nearly forgotten diseases like diphtheria and scarlet fever is informative and harrowing. In all, a nice novelty for HLM obsessives, but there's not a lot here for most others.