Stanley Finger. Doctor Franklin's Medicine. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2006. Pp. xiii, 379. $39.95

The University of Pennsylvania Press has honored the tricentenary of that paragon of North American institution building, Benjamin Franklin, with a volume dedicated to his place in eighteenth-century medicine as contributor, observer, and patient. The author, Stanley Finger, is a historian and former practitioner of the neurosciences and a longstanding admirer of Franklin. His summary of Franklin's contributions under the label “enlightened medicine” does not attempt a full and critical account of this medicine, which would be a welcome if large and thorny task to undertake for the North American colonies. Rather, this is a very full account of how one ubiquitous Founding Father interacted with and observed the practice and theory of eighteenth-century medicine in North America and in the countries he singled out for attention or graced with his presence (mainly England, Scotland, and France, but also...