| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Midwifery and Medicine in Boston: Walter Channing, M.D., 1786–1876. By Amalie M. Kass. (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002. xviii, 386 pp. $40.00, ISBN 1-55553-501-1.)

In Midwifery and Medicine in Boston, Amalie M. Kass delivers what she promises: a compelling portrait of one of America's early medical leaders and a local study of medicine and midwifery during formative years. Kass's thoroughly researched and engagingly written account of Walter Channing highlights his importance to the development of the medical profession and the practice of obstetrics. Kass does not, however, portray Channing as a man ahead of his time. Instead, she illustrates how evolving medical institutions and the limits of medical knowledge shaped his medical—and to some extent his personal—life.

While telling the story of Channing's medical career, Kass simultaneously illuminates the state of the medical profession in the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Like many other early-nineteenth-century physicians, Channing patched together a medical education from many sources. He began his medical training in 1807 as an apprentice to an esteemed Boston physician; then he sought a medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation, he continued his medical studies in Edinburgh, the leading medical center in Europe. There Channing explored his interest in obstetrics, a speciality not yet clearly defined in the United States. This specialty training served Channing well, and in 1815 he was named the first lecturer in midwifery at Harvard Medical College. In 1818 his position was converted to professor of midwifery and medical jurisprudence.

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