"At the end of the nineteenth century, public health was the province of part-time political appointees and volunteer groups of every variety. Public health officers were usually physicians, but they could also be sanitary engineers, lawyers, or chemists- there was little agreement about the skills and knowledge necessary for practice. ... [This book] examines the conflicting ideas of public health's proper subject and scope and its search for some coherent professional unity and identity. ..[The author] uses the debates and decisions surrounding the establishment of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, the first independent institution for public health research and education, to crystallize the fundamental questions of the field."--Jacket.