This book provides a comprehensive over view of eighteenth-century British medical reform, but as an economic historian, Buer considered the effect of diseases and medical intervention on population growth, not on medical ideas. Other optimistic views of the century either focused, like Buer, on the ‘standard of living debate’ or a related debate about the role (if any) of hospitals and public health measures in reducing mortality during the industrial revolution, giving only pasing attention to disease theory.