John Waller

The idea of heredity--that qualities of body and mind are somehow inherited from one's parents--has profoundly shaped many aspects of the human experience: from our attempts to understand variation in personality and intelligence, and popular attitudes to gender, race, and social hierarchy, to the methods employed to increase crop yields and the value of horses and cattle. In this Very Short Introduction, John Waller traces both the technical study...

Health and Wellness in 19th-Century America covers a period of dramatic change in the United States by examining our changing understanding of the nature of the disease burden, the increasing size of the nation, and our conceptions of sickness and health. With topics ranging from the unsanitary tenements of New York's Five Points, the field hospitals of the Civil War, and to the laboratories of Johns Hopkins Medical School, author John C. Waller reveals...