The former Director of the Illinois State Department of Public Health has written an earnest and pedestrian book, designed to acquaint the lay reader with the contributions of American physicians and surgeons to American history and to medicine. The scope and intent of the book are perhaps best indicated by Dr. Jirka's choice of subjects: the first doctors in America, the rôle of American doctors in the Revolution and in colonial times, Major-General Dearborn, Ephraim McDowell, Daniel Drake, W. T. G. Morton, Samuel A. Mudd, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Walter Reed, Major-General Gorgas, Silas Weir Mitchell, Charles Norris, General Wood, Franklin H. Martin, Leo J. Stanley, James Sonnett Greene, the Mayos, and Frederick Tice. The writing is marked by more sincerity than skill.