International meetings about health-care issues—conferences, symposia, cyber-gatherings—have become something of an epidemic in the past decade. There is a brisk trade in the latest panaceas offered for the various real and imagined ills of modern medical care systems. When policy fixes fail in their country of origin, they are regularly offered to unsuspecting audiences elsewhere. Moreover, what travels as comparative analysis is often simply a collection of parallel descriptions of national health arrangements. So when there is a flurry of systematic comparative studies of health care by political scientists, a development illustrated by the four books under review, one ought to pay attention.
Breslaw, Elaine G.: Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic. Health Care in Early America. New York; London, New York University Press, 2012. 251 p. Ill. £ 23.99. ISBN 978-0-8147-8717-5