In some respect each of this collection of essays pertains to New Jerseys medical history. Although each chapter stands alone and may differ in style and tone, together they provide a narrative history of medical practice from pre-Colonial times almost to the present. The narrative depicts a kaleidoscope of medical personalities - some heroic, others distinctly not.

Book Four in the series Meanderings in Medical History contains seventeen essays about various subjects pertaining to medical history. Each vignette was prompted by something that was relevant to my professional or personal experience. The emphasis is on narrative history, stories of physicians at different times and places. As historian Allan Nevins (no relation) once wrote, History should be enjoyed, not endured.

These essays about various unrelated medical history subjects were composed over some three decades; some written recently, others published in my previous books. The title word meandering suggests randomness, but should not be mistaken for pointlessness for each vignette was prompted by something which at the time seemed relevant to my professional or personal life. The emphasis is on narrative history, stories of physicians at different times and places, for as my famous namesake Professor Allan Nevins once wrote, history should be enjoyed, not endured.

As with the previous two books in this trilogy of "meanderings", the current collection contains essays about medical practice and the lives of various physicians at different times and places.

These essays about various unrelated medical history subjects were composed over some three decades; some written recently, others published in my previous books. The title word "meandering" suggests randomness, but should not be mistaken for pointlessness for each vignette was prompted by something which at the time seemed relevant to my professional or personal life. The emphasis is on narrative history, stories of physicians at different times and places, for as my famous namesake Professor Allan Nevins once wrote, "history should be enjoyed, not endured."

As with the previous two books in this trilogy of meanderings, the current collection contains essays about medical practice and the lives of various physicians at different times and places.

As this book shows, between 1910 and 1942, social feminists in New Jersey waged an unsuccessful campaign for legislation that would permit eugenic sterilization of ‘feebleminded’ and other ‘undesirable’ citizens. Church archives and religious periodicals described the conflict between Catholic and Protestant citizens regarding this issue. Reform-minded women persisted in their quest for such progressive state legislation despite repeated failures. Their number of potential voters was very small compared to the organized bloc of Catholic citizens who viewed such legislation as immoral and based on bad science, and threatened to unseat any legislator who supported such a notion. This insightful text highlights that public officials would only enact such laws when they were convinced that many citizens supported a particular eugenic goal and then would vote for legislators who satisfied this moral challenge. Public opinion was unprepared for such radical legislation in New Jersey, and legislators learned that to even consider a eugenic sterilization notion would be political suicide.