The writer/editor and some of his books

The final chapter of the CPHA-sponsored history of public health in Canada takes the story up to 1986. I was one of the committee members who argued strongly against attempts to bring it up to date, to 2010 -- we must wait until we have some historical perspective, not try to describe impartially the events in progress now. I edited the Canadian Journal of Public Health from 1981 until 1991, so the chapter dealing with the period from 1970-1986 says a bit about my rabble-rousing years as editor. That was a wonderful time that I enjoyed from start to finish, despite occasional spats with aggrieved authors whose masterpieces I rejected, with the backing of peer reviewers and the editorial board, I hasten to add (I instituted the peer review process and did my best to elevate the scientific quality of the papers we accepted). The piece that some one else (not I) wrote doesn't mention this, which I consider the most important step forward of my time as editor. Sylvia and Sue, whom I wrote about in the previous post, selected a very unflattering photo to accompany the paragraph they composed about my work as editor of CJPH. I asked them to consider some alternatives, so they chose the one above, taken by a reporter for the Ottawa Citizen, to illustrate a story they ran about some of my ideas on the ethical management of life-endangering epidemics. It was the reporter's idea, not mine, to pose me behind a heap of some of the books I've written and edited. My brother says I look like a hobbit peering out of his hole, but since it's about to appear in a book I helped to edit and to which I contributed a few bits and pieces and an Epilogue (with a lot of help from my friends) I suppose it deserves a place in this blog.

Electronic copies of the book on CD-ROM will be available in about 10 days, at the Centennial Conference of the Canadian Public Health Association in Toronto. I'll get a few spare copies to give to family and friends.