York Society Research Articles

The Hospital for Special Surgery 1955 to 1972: T. Campbell Thompson Serves as Sixth Surgeon-in-Chief 1955-1963 Followed by Robert Lee Patterson, Jr. the Seventh Surgeon-in-Chief 1963-1972.

After two decades as the fifth Surgeon-in-Chief (1935-1955) of The Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), Philip Duncan Wilson, MD (1886-1969) retired, having implemented, during his administration, major changes in the hospital. The first most important accomplishment was finalizing a formal affiliation with New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in 1955 and moving adjacent to the medical campus at 535 East 70th Street. The second was changing the name of the Hospital in 1940 from The Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled to The Hospital for Special Surgery. During the two decades as Surgeon-in-Chief, Dr. Wilson was able to reestablish the hospital as a foremost hospital in the orthopedic world. The Board of Managers of the New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled appointed T. Campbell Thompson, MD (1902-1986), as the sixth Surgeon-in-Chief of The Hospital for Special Surgery. He assumed that office on July 1, 1955. During the previous year, Dr. Thompson served as President of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Philip D. Wilson, upon his retirement as Surgeon-in-Chief, took on a newly created role as Director of Research at HSS. In 1962, adverse relations between The Hospital for Special Surgery and New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center seriously threatened the continued affiliation agreement between the two hospitals. Because of difficulties over a faculty and staff appointment, Dr. Thompson resigned from the office of Surgeon-in-Chief. He was replaced in1963 by Robert Lee Patterson, Jr., MD (1907-1994), who had first joined the staff of The Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled in 1936 as a Visiting Surgeon.

Notes from the Editors, November 2009

» Notes from the EditorsThe Monthly Review sixtieth anniversary celebration at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on September 17, 2009, was a great success. A large crowd turned out to hear Grace Lee Boggs, John Bellamy Foster, Robert W. McChesney, Fred Magdoff, Michael Tigar, Toshi Reagon (providing music), and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and to celebrate MR's birthday. We would like to thank all those who participated in this extraordinary event. Dr. Wright captured the tone of the evening, declaring that: "Militarism, capitalism and racism, domestic oppression, foreign military aggression, victims of neo-colonialism, victims of community and national racism, and the Cold War days in its infancy to the needless war in Vietnam in its [MR's] second decade, through wars of greed in Afghanistan and Iraq in [its] sixth decade" were all incisively covered by the magazine. He spoke of Monthly Review's indefatigable insistence on the need to put "people before profits," and its unflinching criticisms of inequality, injustice, and the realities of capitalism. (See Daa'iya L. Sanusi, Amsterdam News, September 24-30, 2009)This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Hospital for Special Surgery affiliates with Cornell University Medical College and New York Hospital, 1951; Philip D. Wilson retires as Surgeon-in-Chief, 1955.

When World War II ended in 1945, the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), the oldest orthopedic hospital in the country, was entering its eighth decade. Only 5 years previously, its name was changed from the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled (R & C). In 1934, Dr. Philip D. Wilson (1886-1969) had been recruited to fill the office of the fifth Surgeon-in-Chief with a key charge to restore the hospital as the leading orthopedic institution in our country, a role it originally held for over half a century since its founding in 1863. Wilson believed that a close affiliation with a university center having a medical school and hospital, while maintaining independence, was vital to achieve this objective. In 1948, negotiations between representatives of the Board of the New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled and representatives of the Society of the New York Hospital and Cornell Medical Center began and a preliminary written agreement was reached in March, the next year. The affiliation called for construction of a new building to house approximately 170 inpatient beds for orthopedics and arthritis. The land on the East River between 70th and 71st Streets, owned by New York Hospital, was to be given, without monetary exchange, to the Hospital for Special Surgery for construction of its new hospital. Finally, on November 1, 1951, a new non-proximate agreement was ratified. On May 25, 1955, after 43 years at 321 East 42nd Street, the Hospital for Special Surgery moved to its new six million dollar building at 535 East 70th Street where it formally became affiliated with New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Two months later, on July 1, 1955, Philip D. Wilson retired as Surgeon-in-Chief to become the Hospital for Special Surgery's new Director of Research and Surgeon-in-Chief Emeritus.

Giovanni Boldini’s Consuelo Vanderbilt (1876-1964), Duchess of Marlborough, and Her Son, Lord Ivor Spencer-Churchill (1898-1956)

Giovanni Boldini’s <i>Consuelo Vanderbilt (1876-1964), Duchess of Marlborough, and Her Son, Lord Ivor Spencer-Churchill (1898-1956)</i>

The Emergence of Genetic Rationality (review)

Reviewed by: The Emergence of Genetic Rationality Kim Kleinman The Emergence of Genetic Rationality. By Phillip Thurtle. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. 2007. Phillip Thurtle presents an intriguing but ultimately too ambitious examination of biology as Gregor Mendel's "genetics" comes to explain what had been known as "heredity" in the early 20th Century. In a nicely sustained concluding discussion, Thurtle exemplifies this transition by looking at the contrasting yet complementary views of botanist Hugo deVries and naturalist David Starr Jordan on the work of plant breeder Luther Burbank. Jordan had invited deVries to Stanford University where he was president in July 1904. DeVries, one of the rediscoverers of Mendel, admired the scope and industrial scale of Burbank's creation of plant hybrids, while, for Jordan, Burbank's continued to use an older approach of observing phenomena in their varied landscapes. Thurtle's insight is that information processing systems are shifting in this period, reflecting the "two sets of logics developed from two mutually supporting but distinctly different spatial and temporal practices" (307). Thurtle further develops the idea of this older "panoramic mode" in relation to Spencer Fullerton Baird's organization of natural history expeditions for the Smithsonian Institution when he was its assistant secretary. Creating through specimen collection panoramas, both over a species range and of the variety of species from a locale, Baird [End Page 185] was able to make more usable the discoveries of Smithsonian expeditions. Baird took advantage of such technological developments as the Wooten patent desk (he did not, however, use the newly introduced vertical file system before his death in 1887) to organize this information. Jordan, as a naturalist he was a protege of Baird's, helped build Stanford University as one of the United States' great private universities as its first president. Leland Stanford's wanted to use the major professor system of another of Jordan's mentors, Andrew Dickinson White of Cornell University to create a university that would forge leaders of industry with practical skills. So he hired Jordan from Indiana University with just that aim. Stanford also figures in Thurtle's first important episode, the development of trotter horse breeding as a hobby for the emerging captains of industry in the late 19th Century. Effectively using Edith Wharton's subtle literary depictions of the social nuances of New York society, Thurtle situates this emerging hobby for the rich as a cultural phenomenon. Heredity, national and regional identity, and industrial practices are all factors giving depth to what seems at first glance be yet another frivolity of the rich. Thurtle's use of other literary figures—Theodore Dreiser and Jack London, in particular—to reflect key features of his argument is strong and inviting. Frustrating, though, are the long stretches of dry theoretical exposition establishing analytical tools that are not given a sufficient test on a too small handful of historical moments—trotter horse breeding, Smithsonian expeditions, and Luther Burbank—that are meant to capture American culture just as genetics is emerging. These tools can be useful, but there is more work to be done to explore the emergence of genetic rationality, shaped, as Thurtle suggests, by developments in industry, information, and institutions. Kim Kleinman Webster University Copyright © 2010 Mid-America American Studies Association

A Bioenergetic Clinical Case Study of Sarah

This is a case study written as the final paper for my clinical training program at the New York Society for Bioenergetic Analysis. Our final year of training was focused on the study of transference and countertransference dynamics. The assignment for this paper was to present a case study including a clinical formulation of the characterological dynamics of the client’s personality functioning, a bioenergetic body and character assessment, and an examination of the transference and countertransference dynamics within the treatment.

Future Families and Nurses of the Future as Seen in 1948

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary celebration of the Community Service Society (CSS) of New York, Ruth Weaver Hubbard, president of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing, addressed the audience with a talk about "Nursing for Health in Tomorrow's Family." The full text of her speech was printed in the original Public Health Nursing in June 1948. This article presents excerpts of her forecast of the future of the American family and the role of the nurse in helping to achieve health. Predictions from the past provide an unusual historical perspective, one of peering into a future now some 50 years past. The fabric of life in the United States has changed dramatically since 1948, but Hubbard's opinion that nursing is integral to a team approach to helping individuals and communities address their own needs was articulated with profound conviction.

The Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled Eugene H. Pool, Fourth Surgeon-in-Chief 1933–1935 Followed by Philip D. Wilson, Fifth Surgeon-in-Chief 1935

In 1933, for the second time in the history of the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled (R & C), a general surgeon, Eugene Hillhouse Pool, MD, was appointed Surgeon-in-Chief by the Board of Managers of the New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled. R & C (whose name was changed to the Hospital for Special Surgery in 1940), then the oldest orthopaedic hospital in the country, was losing ground as the leading orthopaedic center in the nation. The R & C Board charged Dr. Pool with the task of recruiting the nation's best orthopaedic surgeon to become the next Surgeon-in-Chief. Phillip D. Wilson, MD, from the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and the Harvard Medical School was selected and agreed to accept this challenge. He joined the staff of the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled in the spring of 1934 as Director of Surgery and replaced Dr. Pool as Surgeon-in-Chief the next year. It was the time of the Great Depression, which added a heavy financial toll to the daily operations of the hospital. With a clear and courageous vision, Dr. Wilson reorganized the hospital, its staff responsibilities, professional education and care of patients. He established orthopaedic fellowships to support young orthopaedic surgeons interested in conducting research and assisted them with the initiation of their new practices. Recognizing that the treatment of crippling conditions and hernia were becoming separate specialties, one of his first decisions was to restructure the Hernia Department to become the General Surgery Department. His World War I experiences in Europe helped develop his expertise in the fields of fractures, war trauma and amputations, providing a broad foundation in musculoskeletal diseases that was to be beneficial to him in his future role as the leader of R & C.

The Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled: William Bradley Coley, third Surgeon-in-Chief 1925-1933.

In January 1925, the Board of Managers of the New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled appointed William Bradley Coley, M.D., age 63, Surgeon-in-Chief of the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled (R & C) to succeed Virgil P. Gibney who submitted his resignation the month before. It would be the first time a general surgeon held that position at the oldest orthopedic hospital in the nation, now known as Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS). Coley had been on staff for 36 years and was world famous for introducing use of toxins to treat malignant tumors, particularly sarcomas. A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Medical College, Coley interned at New York Hospital and was appointed, soon after, to the staff of the New York Cancer Hospital (now Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) located at that time at 106th Street on the West Side of New York. With his mentor Dr. William Bull, Coley perfected the surgical treatment of hernias at R & C. He was instrumental in raising funds for his alma maters, Yale, Harvard and Memorial Hospital. His crusade in immunology as a method of treatment for malignant tumors later fell out of acceptance in the medical establishment. After his death in 1936, an attempt to revive interest in use of immunotherapy for inoperable malignancies was carried out by his daughter, Helen Coley Nauts, who pursued this objective until her death at age 93 in 2000. Coley's health deteriorated in his later years, and in 1933, he resigned as chief of Bone Tumors at Memorial Hospital and Surgeon-in-Chief at R & C, being succeeded at Ruptured and Crippled as Surgeon-in-Chief by Dr. Eugene H. Pool. William Bradley Coley died of intestinal infarction in 1936 and was buried in Sharon, Connecticut.

The Medieval Court of Arches (review)

The Medieval Court of Arches. Edited by F. Donald Logan. [The Canterbury and York Society,Volume 95.] (Rochester, NewYork:The Boydell Press. 2005. Pp. xlviii, 240. $49.95.) The metropolitan appellate court of the archbishop of Canterbury, the Court of Arches (or the Arches, for short) that met in St. Mary le Bow church in central London, was the most important medieval English ecclesiastical tribunal. Logan's study of the court ranges from its creation sometime in the midthirteenth century until the early sixteenth century, when Henrician statutes prohibited legal recourse in ecclesiastical matters from England to the pope. The volume contains an excellent lengthy introductory essay, wherein Logan not only offers a summary history of the Arches, but also provides an analysis of the court's structure, personnel, administrative routine, and trial procedures. He has collected and carefully edited an impressive range of Latin documents, which he has grouped in three sections after his introduction: archiepiscopal statutes concerning the Arches, the customs of the court, and procedural treatises designed for practitioners in this tribunal. Two further sections follow the edited texts. One lists the names, ordered chronologically and by office, of several hundred court personnel (officiates Cantuariensis, deans of the Arches, examiners general, registrars, scribes of the acts, apparitors, proctors, and advocates).The other briefly describes the court's calendar of sessions. While the existence of the Court of Arches dates at least from 1251, Logan suggests that disputes concerning appeals could have spurred Archbishop Boniface of Savoy after his 1245 consecration to establish a provincial appellate tribunal fixed at St. Mary le Bow: By the end of the century the Court of Arches had presiding officers (the archbishop's officialis and the latter's commissary-general, the dean of the Arches) as well as a professional-and probably already closed-group of sworn practitioners, namely, the advocates and proctors who functioned roughly in the same manner as modern barristers and solicitors. Several archbishops had already issued statutes; the customs of the court had been redacted in written form, and several procedural treatises had been composed. During this early period the Arches heard three kinds of cases: appeals from diocesan courts, direct complaints, and so-called tuitorial appeals, whereby a litigant appealed the main issue in dispute directly to the pope, while requesting protection (or tuition) from the archbishop in the interim.The second and third kinds of cases periodically caused friction between the archbishop and his suffragans. In the early 1280's the latter charged that direct complaints to the Arches bypassed their own diocesan courts, and that the appellate court's summary procedure of granting tuition permitted frivolous appeals. Arbitration settled this conflict in 1282; apart from intermittent disputes, Canterbury archbishops and suffragans managed to co-operate in the smooth functioning of the court. …

Brief Notices

Brief Notices Hughes, Jill B. (Ed.). The Register of Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1296-1321, Volume II. [The Canterbury and York Society, Vol. XCVII.] (Rochester, New York: Boydell and Brewer Press for the Canterbury and York Society. 2007. Pp. xiv, 367. $47.95, £25.) Bishops' registers are an important source. They do, however, vary in interest and may contain little more than standardized entries. It might be expected that an intriguing bishop such as Walter Langton might have an interesting register. It is not, after all, many bishops who are accused of doing homage to the devil and of strangling their mistress's husband. Further, Walter was Edward I's most important minister in the king's later years, and he was subjected to a major state trial under Edward II. Yet this volume of his register contains no hint of such matters. It consists of 177 printed pages of names of those ordained by Langton, with details of who presented them. An appendix demonstrates that Langton officiated regularly at ordinations, above all in December, even during the years when he was serving as treasurer. This volume also contains a valuable itinerary, which makes it very clear that after he had fallen out of royal favor he spent most of his time in his admittedly very large diocese, apart from attending parliament on a regular basis. Another appendix gives in extenso some of the documents that are calendared in the first volume. It is very good to have this part of the register in print, for the sake of completeness; it is, however, the case that it is the first volume that is likely to be consulted regularly, rather than this one. Michael Prestwich (University of Durham) Rodriguez, Janel. Meet Fulton Sheen: Beloved Preacher and Teacher of the Word. (Cincinnati, Ohio: Servant Books/St. Anthony Messenger Press. 2006. Pp. x, 158. $9.99 paperback.) In light of the fact that the cause for the canonization of Fulton Sheen is currently underway, and that he has recently been proclaimed a "Servant of God," perhaps a short introduction to the man and his life fills a niche for those unfamiliar with him. He was generally recognized and eulogized as the greatest preacher and evangelist of the twentieth century in the United States, by journalists and historians alike, at the time of his death in 1979. Father Andrew Apostoli, C.F.R., vice-postulator of the cause, writes in the foreword that Bishop Sheen was a "common household name" to one generation [End Page 739] of Catholics, but often known by today's younger generation only "by hearsay." The strength of Ms. Rodriguez's book can be found in its "readable and attractive style" which covers the main stages of Sheen's illustrious career—philosopher and professor, prolific writer, preacher of the electronic gospel and convert-maker, anti-communist crusader and missionary, and post-Vatican II Bishop of Rochester (New York)—while also focusing on Sheen's character and personal piety. His devotion to the Virgin Mary was well known, as was his practice of the Holy Hour, which inspired many other priests in their vocations. So, for the novice, this book serves a useful purpose, and should encourage those impressed by Sheen's story to explore further. But, Rodriguez offers little that is new. As the footnotes and sketchy bibliography indicate, she relied heavily on collections of Sheen's words (of the "best" and "quotations" genre) and three more substantive biographies: Sheen's autobiography Treasure in Clay; America's Bishop by Thomas C. Reeves; and my own Fulton J. Sheen: An American Catholic Response to the Twentieth Century (a good proofreader/editor would have noticed that she left out the essential Catholic in the title). In the final analysis, Sheen's unparalleled life merits a deeper look, commensurate with his own description of a "life worth living" as one of both mystery and adventure. Kathleen L. Riley (Ohio Dominican University)

In Their Words: Secondary Traumatic Stress in Social Workers Responding to the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks in New York City

Journal Article In Their Words: Secondary Traumatic Stress in Social Workers Responding to the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks in New York City Get access Mary L. Pulido, PhD Mary L. Pulido, PhD executive director The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 161 William Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10038; e-mail: mpulido@nyspcc.org or pulidomary@aol.com Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Social Work, Volume 52, Issue 3, July 2007, Pages 279–281, https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/52.3.279 Published: 01 July 2007 Article history Received: 10 September 2005 Accepted: 09 January 2007 Published: 01 July 2007

The register of Thomas Appleby, bishop of Carlisle, 1363–1395. Edited by R. L. Storey. (Canterbury and York Society, 94.) Pp. xiii+198. Woodbridge: Boydell &amp; Brewer, 2006. £25. 0 907239 66 8

<i>The register of Thomas Appleby, bishop of Carlisle, 1363–1395</i>. Edited by R. L. Storey. (Canterbury and York Society, 94.) Pp. xiii+198. Woodbridge: Boydell &amp; Brewer, 2006. £25. 0 907239 66 8

American Society of Echocardiography/Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists Recommendations and Guidelines for Continuous Quality Improvement in Perioperative Echocardiography

Joseph P. Mathew, MD, FASE, Kathryn Glas, MD, FASE, Christopher A. Troianos, MD, Pamela Sears-Rogan, MD, FASE, Robert Savage, MD, Jack Shanewise, MD, FASE, Joseph Kisslo, MD, FASE, Solomon Aronson, MD, FASE, and Stanton Shernan, MD, FASE, for the Council for Intraoperative Echocardiography of the American Society of Echocardiography, Durham, North Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Washington, DC, Cleveland, Ohio, New York, New York, and Boston, Massachusetts

The Mayo Clinic World War II Short Course and Its Effect on Anesthesiology

The Mayo Clinic World War II Short Course and Its Effect on Anesthesiology

Arnold Arluke, Brute Force: Animal Police and the Challenge of Cruelty

Animals have been an important part of human society since time immemorial. Whether it is in association with hunting, exploiting them for their potential labor, or valuing them for the roles they play in providing comfort to humans, animals have been and are deeply embedded within human society. The treatment of animals by humans has even served as a marker for the “civilizing” trends of modern society. For instance, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), founded in 1866 in New York City, preceded the institutionalization of the first child welfare agency, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The ASPCA led crusades against cruelty to animals and lobbied for legislation to protect a broad range of animals, years before the initiation of efforts to protect children. Similarly, some of the first environmental laws in the US were directed at regulating game animals and wildlife. What animals could be hunted and the “purpose” of hunting, whether for sport or for market profiteering, were subject to legal control. From a sociological perspective, these and other initiatives regarding animals speak volumes about the values and ideologies evident within human society. For several years, sociologists conducting human-animal studies have offered fresh insights into what the treatment of animals means for human society and social order. Whether it’s understanding animals for their potential to assist in the construction of the self, the relationship between animals and social problems such as inequality or violence, the occupational lives and careers of animal workers, or the significance of animals to social movements and social conflict, this work has explored themes central to mainstream sociology. Arluke’s book, Brute Force: Animal Police and the Challenge of Cruelty, provides further evidence of the value of sociological inquiry into human-animal relationships. Arluke offers a richly textured, and at times deeply disturbing, ethnography of the occupational practices, roles, and ideologies of humane law enforcement officers as they encounter, investigate, and prosecute incidents of animal cruelty. Like all skilled ethnographers, Arluke gained access to the subjective worldviews of his subjects by becoming an active participant in their daily

Crimes against Children: Sexual Violence and Legal Culture in New York City, 1880-1960

Stephen Robertson has written a complex analysis of what is sometimes mistakenly viewed as a simple subject. Commentators may speak generally of sex crimes against children as though they belong to a single, homogeneous category, but societal reactions are more complicated. Robertson makes this complexity apparent through a careful examination of New York County district attorney case files drawn at five-year intervals (his sample includes both cases dismissed by grand juries and those that went to court). It is important that these files include reports from New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (nyspcc) agents, who were charged with investigating and advising appropriate action in cases involving child victims. Creating a case involved translating reports of behavior into legally relevant terms; nyspcc agents and assistant district attorneys interviewed the children but also parents, witnesses, and the alleged offenders. These sources undoubtedly offered all manner of information, but Robertson shows how the files were crafted to contain what was seen as the relevant material. Thus, in order to present prepubescent female victims as the innocents that late nineteenth-century culture idealized them as being, files emphasized the victim's lack of resistance (putting up a fight might suggest that the girl was aware of what was happening and therefore not innocent) and use of immature euphemisms. In contrast, it was important to demonstrate that adolescent females had resisted (lest they be suspected of having willingly cooperated).

Fitzgerald's Mythical Manhattan: Coming of Age in "May Day" and "My Lost City"

By the time F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote My Lost in 1932, he had not only witnessed a tumultuous transformation of New York society and culture in just one short decade but had been a major participant in it as well. Moreover, Fitzgerald had an acute sense that the permanent metamorphosis from a Victorian ideology to modernity had begun to solidify in America in 1919. In recalling his own romance with this city, he briefly reflects in this essay upon the events that shaped the setting and action for his 1920 story May Day. While not specifically mentioning 1 1919 the day on which several anti-Socialist riots took place throughout New York City Fitzgerald alludes to the tension between the appearance of success and triumph in the city on the one hand and the rising labor movement, brought back to life after the war, which questioned Americas capitalist prowess, on the other. He portrays this tension vividly in May Day through the intertwined stories of vibrant characters like Philip Dean and Edith Bradin, the obsolete in the soldiers Carrol Key and Gus Rose, the downtrodden in Gordon Sterrett and their advocate, Henry Bradin, who runs a radical socialist newspaper. In My Lost City, Fitzgerald's later essay about his turbulent coming of age in New York, it becomes evident through this allusion to May Day that the city exhibited similar growing pains in recreating itself in the image of modernity during the 1920s. While the story's title points

Evaluating the quality of medical care. 1966.

Evaluating the quality of medical care. 1966.

Catholics and Contraception: An American History (review)

Reviewed by: Catholics and Contraception: An American History John T. Noonan Jr. Catholics and Contraception: An American History. By Leslie Woodcock Tentler. [Cushwa Center Studies of Catholicism in Twentieth-Century America.] (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 2004. Pp. xvi, 335. $29.95.) In 1873, the Congress of the United States enacted a bill gingerly described in the Congressional Globe as prohibiting the use in commerce of "obscene and immoral things." The bill banned the use of the mail for the distribution of "any article whatever for the prevention of conception" or for the advertisement of such articles. Imprisonment up to ten years was the penalty for violation. The bill employed the federal arsenal's most powerful tool against crime: not much could be accomplished in this country without using the mail. Modeled on English statute, the bill was enacted by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by President Grant. It was named for Anthony Comstock, the Secretary of the New York Society for the Prevention of Vice. At the date of the Comstock Act's enactment, public opinion in this country was united. No special Catholic position on contraception existed. Catholics and Contraception is the story of how, in the ninety years following enactment of the Comstock Act, the Catholic Church became conspicuous as the condemner of contraception. The story is ably told by Leslie Woodcock [End Page 873] Tentler, professor of history at the Catholic University of America. The author of a history of the Archdiocese of Detroit and a study of women wage-earners in the United States from 1900 to 1930, Tentler employs her experience to draw on a range of sources that give concreteness to the tale. Among these sources are mission sermons or notes for mission sermons (missions having once been a staple for strengthening parish life); oral interviews with priests recalling their experience as confessors (sometimes fifty years ago); and, most touching and most troubling, the letters of married women when, in the 1960's, they were invited, in connection with the examination of the existing rules, to recount their own efforts to observe them. The data are fragmentary for the first part of the twentieth century. They become thicker after Pius XI's Casti connubii in 1930. They are abundant for the decade of Vatican Council II and the debate that principally centered on "the pill." Among the surprises of the story is the role of "the reformers" to invigorate the inculcation of an anti-contraceptive morale. That such reformers included John A. O'Brien of Notre Dame; Reynold H. Hillenbrand, the Chicago liturgist; and John A. Ryan, later famous as "Right Reverend New Dealer," is a sign of how deeply the opposition to birth control had become entrenched in the Catholic clerical conscience. The arguments against contraception ranged from that of John Montgomery Cooper, a priest-anthropologist at the Catholic University, to that of Patrick Hayes, archbishop of New York. Cooper's case Tentler finds to have been "humane and engagingly argued." Hayes, in a pastoral letter appearing in the New York Times, December 18, 1921, described contraception as worse than murder, "a diabolical thing." His reason: "an immortal soul is denied existence in time and eternity." It is difficult today to empathize with the passions engaged in the struggle. What seems significant now is the seriousness with which all sides saw the connection between sexual conduct and salvation. It is also probably difficult for anyone born after 1955 to comprehend this seriousness and believe that there was a struggle. But the struggle occurred and reached its climax in the 1960's, as Tentler accurately records. In 1968, Paul VI issued Humanae vitae. The hierarchies of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands read the encyclical as less than an absolute directive; English-speaking episcopates were more literal-minded. In the United States, after a few years, what followed was silence. Humanae vitae had the impact on public pronouncements on sexual subjects by Catholic authorities that Benedict XIV's encyclical in 1745 reiterating the condemnations of usury had had on public pronouncements on economic subjects by Catholic authorities. It took a century and a half for the Church to...