This is the first full-length biography of New York surgeon and social activist Stephen Smith (1823–1922), who was appointed to fifty years of public service by three mayors, seven governors, and two U.S. presidents. The book presents the complex life of Stephen Smith, a consistent figure in the history of public health, mental health, housing reform in New York, and even urban reforestation. Utilizing Smith’s writings, public records, and recently discovered personal correspondence, this research shows how Smith succeeded where others failed. It also acknowledges that Smith was unsuccessful in convincing his fellow professionals to fight for a cabinet level public health department or to resist the rise of custodial care for the mentally impaired. Given Smith’s many accomplishments, the book asks us to consider if what stopped him stops us, highlighting the relevance of Smith’s story to contemporary debates. Pestilence, Insanity, and Trees is a readable and well-documented narrative and a resource for students and scholars, filling gaps in the history of American medicine, public health, mental health, and New York social reform.

Believing that repetitive use of poetry, especially when set in musical form, makes a profound and enduring impression on the intellectual development of the mind, the author uses a series of sermons to explore how the Psalter helped a young, maturing Jesus understand God whom He usually called Father. The instructions, prayers, and praises from the Psalms describing the relationship between God and daily life as Israel's poet experienced it are just as formative for the twenty-first century as they were more than 2500 years ago. When read with gentle care, the Psalms nourish the mature saint or the most skeptical critic as they have every generation since King David. Across these many centuries the words have remained constant, but the applications change regularly, just as each generation composes new tunes and a slightly adapted poetic form. With a sense of scholarship, history, tradition, and current events, this book looks at a few of the 150 Psalms that comprised what some have called Israel's hymnbook. What did Jesus learn about God as He heard and perhaps sung their words? Would we benefit from learning these same lessons? the opinion of the author that the ancient poets of Israel, if they were alive today, would embrace both our traditional and contemporary styles of worship. There would be no reason for either one to reject the other. There is only one God. Our praise and worship is dependent on attitude, motivation, integrity, and sincerity rather than instruments, rhythm, volume, and tune.

Beginning with J.S. Bach's harpsichord concertos composed in the beginning of the eighteenth century, John Harris embarks on a musical tour that takes the reader from Germany and Austria through Europe, North America, South America, and Asia, tracing the history of music composed for harpsichord or piano and orchestra. The organization of the book follows the spread of the Baroque harpsichord concerto across countries. Divided into four parts, J.S. Bach to Mozart (the baroque era), Mozart through Beethoven (the classic era), After Beethoven through Brahms (the romantic era), and After Brahms through the Present (the twentieth century), each part begins with an examination of the works composed in Germany, followed by Italy. European countries east of the north-south line through Germany and Italy appear next, followed by countries west of that line. The consistent organization in each part allows a quick comparison of the growing number of concerted works for harpsichord or piano in each era. When data is available, Harris lists the composers' birth and death dates, as well as dates of the musical compositions. The work includes a discography, bibliography, 46 tables of additional composers listed by country, a list of pertinent abbreviations, and index of composers.

It is widely recognized that spiral grain in trees severely reduces the value of sawn timber through warping and loss of strength, and that it also causes problems for other wood uses as diverse as transmission poles or plywood. Yet, paradoxically, there are highly valued grain patterns including wavy and interlocked grain, whose origins in the cambium invite direct comparison with those of spiral grain, so that many authorities believe them to be related phenomena. In recent years this concept has prompted extensive research into the anatomy, genetics, and physiology of all such grain patterns in wood. As a result it has become apparent that tree cambia provide excellent systems through which to study the origins of stem polarity and the complex processes of morphogenetic control in plants. Beside these and other pressing topics for research, the book examines methods of measuring grain deviations, and considers their influence on wood properties, on the economics of timber production, and on wood manufacturing.

This biography of James Edmund Reeves, whose legislative accomplishments cemented American physicians' control of the medical marketplace, illuminates landmarks of American health care: the troubled introduction of clinical epidemiology and development of botanic medicine and homeopathy, the Civil War's stimulation of sanitary science and hospital medicine, the rise of government involvement, the revolution in laboratory medicine, and the explosive growth of phony cures. It recounts the human side of medicine as well, including the management of untreatable diseases and the complex politics of medical practice and professional organizing. His life is reminder that while politics, economics, and science drive the societal trajectory of modern health care, moral decisions often determine its path.

Believing that repetitive use of poetry, especially when set in musical form, makes a profound and enduring impression on the intellectual development of the mind, the author uses a series of sermons to explore how the Psalter helped a young, maturing Jesus understand God whom He usually called Father. The instructions, prayers, and praises from the Psalms describing the relationship between God and daily life as Israel's poet experienced it are just as formative for the twenty-first century as they were more than 2500 years ago. When read with gentle care, the Psalms nourish the mature saint or the most skeptical critic as they have every generation since King David. Across these many centuries the words have remained constant, but the applications change regularly, just as each generation composes new tunes and a slightly adapted poetic form. With a sense of scholarship, history, tradition, and current events, this book looks at a few of the 150 Psalms that comprised what some have called Israel's hymnbook. What did Jesus learn about God as He heard and perhaps sung their words? Would we benefit from learning these same lessons? the opinion of the author that the ancient poets of Israel, if they were alive today, would embrace both our traditional and contemporary styles of worship. There would be no reason for either one to reject the other. There is only one God. Our praise and worship is dependent on attitude, motivation, integrity, and sincerity rather than instruments, rhythm, volume, and tune.