Reforms quickly followed Tenon’s disclosures of the dreadful conditions prevailing in the hospitals of Paris in the 18th century. He was also instrumental in the foundation of a special hospital for children. English translation as Memoirs on Paris  hospitals. Edited and with an introduction, notes and appendices by Dora B. Weiner (1996). Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Following on his work for the improvement of the conditions in prisons, Howard travelled extensively in Europe, carrying out an elaborate investigation into the conditions of hospitals. Digital facsimile of the second edition (1791) from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Study of the health conditions and diseases of black slaves in the Americas.  Digital facsimile of the 1776 edition from Google Books at this link. Second edition, expanded to two volumes. Paris: L'Auteur, 1792.

Hufeland’s “Makrobiotik”, one of the most popular books of its time on personal hygiene. It was translated into all European languages. Hufeland was court physician at Weimar. English translation, 1797.

One of the most comprehensive works on gerontology ever written, with a bibliography of 1800 references, supplemented by abstracts, translated excerpts from ancient authors, national data, etc.

First notable work on the subject in English. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

For this work Wells was awarded the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society. His researches on the subject were of major importance in the development of the science of ventilation, particularly in its relation to relative humidity and the influence of the latter on the comfort of the occupants of factories, ships, theatres, etc. Wells was physician to St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, from 1800 until his death.

Carlisle, a distinguished surgeon and anatomist, advised young people to adopt a sound regimen early in life in order to secure longevity. Addressing himself directly to old people he described diseases common to the elderly and paid particular attention to the problems of performing surgical operations on the aged.

One of the earliest exposures of food adulteration, written by a German chemist who spent most of his career in England. This sensational popular scientific work exposed established scandalous practices within the food processing industry, antagonizing London food manufacturers. The scandal was particularly sensational since it affected consumers of all economic classes. However, after a lawsuit was brought against him Accum left England, living out the rest of his life as a teacher at an industrial institution in Berlin.

"A thousand copies of A Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons were sold within a month of its publication. A second run was printed in the same year, and a German translation was printed in Leipzig two years later. The book's cover shows that Accum was capable of using dramatic imagery to try to draw attention to his scientific knowledge. It featured a rectangular frame supporting a spider's web and surrounded by intertwined snakes. A spider lurks in the middle of the web over its prey, and a skull crowns the entire collection with a caption beneath it, taken from 2 Kings 4:40: 'There is death in the pot' " (Wikipedia article Friedrich Accum, accessed 9-2017).

Digital facsimile of the first edition from the Internet Archive at this link; of the second edition, with different title page, at this link.

Canstatt’s book is one of the most important in the history of gerontology, summarizing all previous work on the subject. Suffering from tuberculosis, Canstatt himself only lived to the age of 43. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

The first volume reprints the author's Essai sur les cloaques ou égouts de la ville de Paris (1824). Parent-Duchâtelet wrote that he had visited all the places which he described in the text: ”J’ai surmonté sans hésiter la répugnance et les dangers inséparables de pareilles recherches. ... J’ai fait tout ce que doit faire un homme jaloux de découvrir la vérité, et de jeter quelque lumière sur un sujet obscur."

Traditionally viewed as a classic in public health, this work has also been characterized as the first scientific study in sexology. Third and most complete edition "complétée par des documents nouvelles et des notes" par A[dolphe] Trebuchet [1801-1865] and Poirat-Duval suivie d'un précis hygiénique, statistique et administratif sur la prostitution dans les principles villes de l'Europe. 2 vols, Paris, 1857. Digital facsimile of the 1836 edition from BnF Gallica at this link; of the 1857 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Chadwick devoted his life to social reform. He was secretary to the Poor Law Commission when he made the above report to Parliament. In it he included a careful analysis of causes of death in 1838 and 1839 and gave a vivid picture of insanitary conditions in England and Wales. The complete report was issued in 3 vols. in 1842 (though the 2nd and 3rd volumes are infrequently found) plus a supplementary summary volume published in 1843. As a result of this and an earlier (1833) report, the foundations of later systems of government inspection were laid, a Public Health Act was passed (1848) and a General Board of Health was established. Chadwick included various lithographed maps illustrating public health issues such as deaths, contagious or epidemic diseases,  housing conditions, etc. See also No.1625.

Compiled by a team, but entirely written by Shattuck, this report was the first general blueprint for the promotion of public health presented to an American governmental body. Its first proposal was for the creation of state and local boards of health in an era when such state commissions were non-existent. A Board of Health was not set up until 1869, however. Shattuck has been called “the Chadwick of America”. An abridged version of this famous Report appears in G. C. Whipple’s State Sanitation, Cambridge, [Mass.], 1917; a facsimile reproduction was published in 1948.

Chevallier, a chemist, was a prolific writer. Above is probably his most important publication.

Reports of the first international public health conference, in which the representatives of 12 European states conferred from July 27, 1851 to January 19, 1852. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Includes four plans of hospitals. A third edition, completely revised, was published by Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1863.

After receiving training in Germany and France, Florence Nightingale had some nursing experience in England. The Crimean war gave her an opportunity to demonstrate the value of trained nurses. Within a few months of her arrival at Scutari, the mortality rate among soldiers there fell from 42% to 2%. Florence Nightingale lived to become the greatest figure in the history of nursing. Facsimile reproduction (? of first edition), Philadelphia, 1946. Biographies by Sir E.T. Cook, 1913, and Cecil Woodham-Smith, 1950. See also Bio-bibliography of Florence Nightingale by W. J. Bishop & S. Goldie, 1962.

Pettenkofer was the founder of experimental hygiene; he was the first to institute a laboratory for hygienic investigation.

First important English treatise on hygiene.

Bazalgette planned the sewers of London.

Virchow advocated a canal sewer system for Berlin. Such a system was constructed by Hobrecht. See No. 1624.

Improvements in school hygiene and the regular inspection of school children were brought about by the efforts of Virchow. English translation, New York, 1871. Virchow’s papers on public health were collected, annotated, and translated into English by L.J.Rather as Collected essays on public health and epidemiology, 2 vols., [Canton, Mass.,1985].

Pettenkofer was responsible for the installation of the modern system of sewage disposal in Munich, and thus succeeded in almost completely ridding that city of typhoid.

Belgrand designed the Paris sewers.

Galton spent some years in the army; he had a variety of interests, chief among them being railways, education and sanitary science. He designed the Herbert Hospital at Woolwich and he invented a ventilating fire grate.

Cohn did much to promote school hygiene. He advocated regular examination of the eyes of school children, an idea which was put into practice in 1885. An English translation of the book appeared in 1886.

Hobrecht was responsible for the construction of the Berlin sewers.

Chadwick may be said to have initiated the public health era. Largely through his efforts the Public Health Act 1848 came into existence in England. He was the greatest sanitarian of the 19th century; among other things he was responsible for the introduction of glazed earthenware pipes for drains. See also R. A. Lewis’s Edwin Chadwick and the public health movement, 1832-54, London, 1952.  Digital facsimile of the 1887 work from the Internet Archive at this link.

Simon was the first medical officer for the City of London. Together with his English sanitary institutions, the above work played a great part in paving the way for modern reforms in the sphere of hygiene and public health. Next to Chadwick, Simon was the greatest sanitary reformer of the 19th century. See also No. 1650. Biography by R. Lambert, 1963.

Billings was responsible for the designing of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. “It marked a new departure in hospital construction…It was the most perfect and best equipped institution of its time” (Kelly & Burrage).

This great work deals with the history, administration, and planning of hospitals, and includes a bibliography. The author was an English financier and philanthropist rather than a professional historian or hospital administrator. He devoted most of his philanthropic work to hospitals and nursing facilities.

Dibdin introduced the bacterial system of sewage purification. Previously he had devised the contact system.

Forel’s best work; translated into 16 languages; 16th edition in 1931.

With A. Helbronner and M. de Recklinghausen.

With Max Gruber and P. M. Ficker.

Digital facsimile of the 1913 edition from the Internet Archive at this link. There were numerous later revised editions.

The first modern treatise on the subject. Nascher coined the term “geriatrics” in a paper of that name in N.Y. med. J., 1909, 90, 358-59.

The first formal handbook on birth control.

In 1909 Imhoff devised the system of sewage purification which bears his name.

Viollet-Le-Duc traced the history of domestic architecture among the different "races" of mankind. Translated into English by Benjamin Bucknall as Habitations of man in all ages (1876). Digital facsimile of the French edition from the Hathi Trust at this link; of the English translation at this link.

Simon "viewed the state as provider of the basic conditions needed for subsistence (without interfering in the iron law of wages) through sanitary reform of the environment, prevention of epidemic diseases, and the regulation of unadulterated food and drugs" (Dorothy Porter, Doctors, the state, and the ethics of political medical practice [2007]).  

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Dufour was a pseudonym of the writer Paul Lacroix. Translated into English by Samuel Putnam as History of prostitution among all the peoples of the world, from the most remote antiquity to the present day, 3 vols., Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1926, Revised edition,  New York: Coivici, Friede,  2 vols, c.1931. Digital facsimile of the 6 vol. original edition from BnF Gallica at this link.

Reprinted with updating preface, 1963, 1970.

Pioneer application of efficiency engineering principles to hospital administration, made over a two year period. Codman was responsible for the “end result idea”. This revolutionary concept, which seems so obvious today, was that a hospital should follow every patient it treats long enough to determine whether or not the treatment was successful. If the treatment was not successful the cause of failure should be determined in order to prevent similar failures in the future. Codman was exceptionally outspoken in his views. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Codman first presented this paper publicly on May 20, 1914 at the 39th annual meeting of the American Gynecological Society. It was later published by the Society as "Study on hospital efficiency as represented by product," Trans. Amer. Gyn. Soc., 39, 60-95. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link. Codman was undoubtedly aware that his contributions to efficiency in hospital administration needed to reach an audience far wider than the limited readership of the American Gynecological Society. He did not wait for the printed version of that lecture to appear in the society's journal. Instead, he had the text privately printed in Boston with the date May 10, 1914 (10 days before he presented his paper). The privately printed version was entitled A study in hospital efficiency as demonstrated by the case report of the first two years of a private hospital. This version had 27, [1] pp. and appeared in printed wrappers. It was printed by Thomas Todd Co., Boston. This version may be considered the first edition.

Codman next issued this work in the form of an expanded 43-page undated pamphlet in 1915 or 1916. For this version, which may be considered a second edition, Codman revised the title slightly to read Study in hospital efficiency: As demonstrated by the case report of the second two years of a private hospital. Boston: Privately Printed, 1915. The printed text is dated October 19,1915 on the last leaf. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link. 

Codman expanded and reissued this work in an undated third edition, changing the title to read A study in hospital efficiency: As demonstrated by the case report of the first five years of a private hospital. That edition, expanded to 179pp., contained references through January 1918 (p. 68). Digital facsimile of the 1918 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.  A brief review of it was published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, CLXXVIII, No., 4, 125 (January 24, 1918). When this third edition was published it contained a tipped-in slip reading:
“This Report will be sent gratis to any member of the American College of Surgeons or to any member of the Massachusetts Medical Society.  To others the price will be one dollar.  When you are through with this copy, kindly hand it to some other person—preferably to a Hospital Trustee.”

Codman died in 1940. After his death copies of the third edition were distributed in a blue cloth binding with a printed label pasted to the inside of the front cover. That label reads:
“This book is sent to you as an officer of the Massachusetts General Hospital, in fulfillment of a special request made by Dr. Codman shortly before his death on November 23rd, 1940.”

Because Codman's ideas became known mainly through his privately printed versions, one or more of those privately printed, and difficult to cite versions, rather than the journal publication, are nearly always cited. 

(Thanks to Malcolm Kottler for unraveling the order of Codman's publications of his "end result idea.")

A history of sewage disposal, the privy, and related matters.

Reprinted 1980.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Originally published in French, 1948.

Supplements, in 1957 and 1963.

2nd edition, 1966.

Vol. 1: Primitive, classical and oriental. Vol. 2: Prostitution in Europe and the New World. Vol 3: Modern sexuality.

A systematic account of international health work from its beginnings to modern times. First published 1952.

First published in WHO Chronicle, 1974. 28, 159-71, 229-47, 369-84, 414-26, 455-70, 475-508. Available from apps.who.int at this link.

Includes bibliographies of classic works, of the history of geriatrics, and of periodicals devoted to the subject.

Hippocrates introduced the inductive method of studying epidemics.

A pupil of Fernel, De Baillou was a follower of Hippocrates in his advancement of the doctrine of “epidemic constitutions”. Crookshank regards him as the first modern epidemiologist. This work includes the first description of whooping cough. This was originally written in 1578. Baillou called it “tussis quintana”. For translation see R. H. Major, Classic descriptions of disease, 3rd ed., 1945, p. 210.  The above work includes a description of the epidemic of diphtheria in Paris, 1576. Later de Baillou advocated tracheotomy, although there is no evidence that he performed that operation.

Cleghorn left a good account of several diseases and conditions not previously observed, among them epidemic jaundice. He included accounts of many post-mortems. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Huxham made daily records of the weather and prevailing diseases; his aim was to establish a relationship between atmospheric conditions and disease. The work was first published in 1728; vol. 1 and 2 of the edition given above are second edition, which was rounded off by a third volume published posthumously. English translation of vol. 1 and 2, 1758-67.

“The best general summary of epidemiological opinion at the beginning of the nineteenth century; and few works surpass it as a compendium of earlier speculations in this field”. (Winslow). A great linguist, Webster was the author of the famous dictionary. Osler considered the above work the most important American medical work written by a layman.

A chronological history of epidemics (plagues, contagions and epizootics) occurring in Spain to the end of the 18th century. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

A second edition was published in 1862. Digital facsimile of the second edition from the Medical Heritage Library at the Internet Archive, at this link.

A collection of essays on the Black Death, the dancing mania, and the English sweat, published 1832-34 and later in a collective English edition, The epidemics of the Middle Ages, 2 pts., London, 1833-35; reprinted 1844, 1846,1859. In the first English edition the general title accompanies Part 2 only; the work entitled “The sweating sickness”, which completes the series, was not included in this edition.

Forms vol. 3 of his Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medizin und der epidemischen Krankheiten, 3te. Aufl.

A classical contribution to modern epidemiology, of which Creighton may be said to have been the founder. Reprinted with new introductory material, 1965. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Originally published in German, 1963.

The first book on vital statistics. Graunt, a draper, studied the Bills of Mortality, which began as weekly lists of deaths and their causes, compiled by parish clerks. They gained much in importance after Graunt’s work, and in 1838 merged into the Registrar-General’s returns. Graunt was a friend of Sir William Petty. Some authorities attribute authorship of the above work to Petty. In his A bibliography of Sir William Petty F.R.S. and of Observations on the bills of Mortality by John Graunt, F.R.S, (1971) Geoffrey Keynes traces the interrelationship of these authors.

Halley, the astronomer, compiled the “Breslau tables” to show “the proportion of men able to bear arms … to estimate mortality rates, to ascertain the price of annuities upon lives, and was thus the virtual founder of vital statistics” (Garrison). The data on which Halley based his conclusions were supplied to him by Caspar Neumann, a pastor of Breslau. Because Neumann's correspondence with the Royal Society was lost, Halley's paper is the only record of the statistics that Neumann collected.

A pioneer statistician, Petty took the first census of Ireland. He was Professor of Anatomy at Oxford and later Graham Professor of Music. SeeNo. 1686.

Jurin was an enthusiastic supporter of inoculation against smallpox, and proved statistically that the fatality of inoculated smallpox is very much less than the fatality of natural smallpox. This is one of the earliest applications of statistics to a particular socio-medical problem. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

De Moivre, French Huguenot mathematician and demographer, formulated the hypothesis that among a body of persons over a certain age the successive annual decreases by death are nearly equal.

Süssmilch, a German army chaplain, produced an important book on vital statistics, the title of which translates as The divine order in the circumstances of the human sex, birth, death and reproduction.  Among other things, he showed the necessity of a healthy and industrious population for the survival of a nation. Süssmilch discovered that, in the long term, there is a constant sex ratio of 1,000 female births to 1,050 male births. His work was the most important until the time of Malthus. Digital facsimile of a printed facsimile of the first edition from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Deparcieux was the first to construct correct life tables. Appendix in 1760. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Original and suggestive work on vital statistics, showing vividly the changing conditions of life as he saw it (Greenwood).

The only collected edition of early bills of mortality, which were generally published as broadsides and are not available separately. Includes reprints of Nos. 1686 and 1688. This work has traditionally been attributed to Thomas Birch, but Hull (1899) gives strong evidence that Heberden was the author.

Malthus laid down the principle that populations increase in geometrical ratio, but that subsistence increases only in arithmetical ratio. He argued that a stage is reached where increase of populations must be limited by sheer want, and he advocated checks on population increase in order to reduce misery and want. His work was an important influence on both Darwin and Wallace in their formulation of the concept of natural selection. It also had a profound influence on the decrease in size of families down to the present time. The book was at first published anonymously, but Malthus attached his name to the greatly expanded second edition of 1803. Malthus continued to revise the work through the sixth edition, 2 vols., 1826. All editions but the fourth contain significant new material.

King has been called the first great economic statistician, surpassing Petty. King was an engraver, herald, surveyor, and Secretary to the Commissioners for the Public Accounts, but he is best known for his 1696 estimates of the wealth and population of England. Writing in 1696, but calculating for the year 1688, he put the population at approximately 5.5 million, and his work was not published at the time because it was considered strategic information. It was rediscovered and first published, with a life of King by antiquarian and political writer George Chalmers as an appendix to the 1802 edition of Chalmers's work.  It first appeared as a separate treatise issued by Stockdale in 1804. Reprinted in Two Tracts by Gregory King.(a) Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England. (b) Of the Naval Trade of England Ao. 1688 and the National Profit then arising thereby. Edited with an introduction by George E. Barnett. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1936.) Digital facsimile of the 1802 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Duvillard showed statistically the effect of smallpox vaccination on the mortality rate. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Place was the first important proponent of birth control in any English speaking country. The above work openly advocates contraception, though without indicating how it was to be achieved. Reprinted with additional material collected by N.E. Himes, London, 1930.

First English book devoted specifically to medical statistics. Hawkins was instrumental in obtaining the insertion of a column for the names of diseases or other causes of death, in connexion with the first Act for the registration of births and deaths.

Louis refuted Broussais’s system of medicine, his “médicine physiologique.”  Louis was instrumental in establishing medicine as an exact science by the introduction of the numerical or statistical method. English translation by C. G. Putnam, with preface and appendix by James Jackson as Researches on the effects of bloodletting in some inflammatory diseases, Boston, 1836.

Quetelet’s statistical researches on the development of the physical and intellectual qualities of man, and an exposition of his concept of the “average man”, which became the by-word of quantitative studies. "Quételet suggested that the ratio of the subject’s weight divided by the square of the height could be used as a measure of fatness that corrected for differences in height. This unit, the Body Mass Index (BMI), is still known as the ‘Quételet Index’ (QI) in some European countries; BMI has been shown to correlate with body fat content, and to predict risk for several of the comorbidities of obesity" (Bray, History of Obesity, IN: Obesity: Science to Practice Edited by Gareth Williams and Gema Frühbeck [2009]). English translation as A treatise on man and the development of his faculties (Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers, 1842). Digital facsimile of the 1835 edition from the Internet Archive at this link, of the English translation at this link. See No. 171.

Ranks with Graunt’s Observations as an original contribution to medical statistics. Significantly expanded from the first edition (1837).  Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.