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Previous Volume 338:68 January 1, 1998 Number 1 Next

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(Cambridge History of Medicine.) By Harry M. Marks. 258 pp. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1997. $59.95. ISBN 0-521-58142-7.

What kinds of tests should be performed on a drug before its release? What kinds of professional skills are most appropriate for performing such tests, and how safe must a drug be before it is marketed? Harry Marks, a medical historian at Johns Hopkins University, shows that none of these questions are new; issues of authority, risk, and benefit have been raised since early in the 20th century, when the new "wonder drugs" gave hope that diseases would succumb to the weight of laboratory science.

The primary focus of the book is on the post–World War II era, when randomized . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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