Aftermath: Some consequences of editing a famous textbook of public health

Wendy and I returned to Ottawa at the end of my rather elastic sabbatical year in New York over the Labour Day weekend of 1979.  It was “rather elastic” because I’d stretched it at both ends, having left Ottawa in June 1978 for a holiday at Wellfleet on Cape Cod, and then stayed on in New York through July and August 1979, delaying departure from New York until the last possible moment. There was an excellent reason for this: I wanted to be on the spot during the final production stages of the huge book to which I’d given birth. I was able to bike down from our apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan to the offices of the publishers, then called Appleton-Century-Croft, on Madison Avenue at 38^th Street, to review the camera-ready sheets from which the book’s pages were printed.  This last stage before printing and binding took place in mid to late August 1979.

With help from David and Jonathan, Wendy and I loaded a rental truck with all the loot we’d acquired during our stay in the Big Apple and set off for Ottawa in a convoy of the truck and the VW Rabbit I’d bought a few months earlier; Wendy drove this, with Jonathan as navigator. They got separated from us on the bewildering tangle of access and exit ramps at each end of the George Washington bridge, but fortunately we reunited successfully at the motel in upstate New York where I’d booked us all in for our final night in the USA. There was a small hiccup as we re-entered Canada: Wendy and Jonathan were not yet Canadian citizens and they had been out of Canada for over 12 months. There was real doubt for a half hour or so as to whether they would be allowed into Canada, but fortunately the officials stretched the rules and admitted them. Probably if we were to attempt the same border crossing in the new world of rigid controls in the age of terrorism, they would be turned back, denied entry.

Maxcy-Rosenau Public Health and Preventive Medicine 11^th edition was published in November 1979 (with a copyright date of 1980: textbook publishers, like car manufacturers, and like me with sabbatical leaves, modify calendars to suit their ends).  A large parcel of copies reached me within a week or so, and applying the principle of casting bread upon the waters, I distributed these widely and I think, wisely.  Dean Gilles Hurteau had appointed me secretary of the faculty of medicine, a position roughly comparable to registrar. I presented a copy to him at a meeting of the faculty council, and perceived immediately and over subsequent weeks that the mere sight of this very large book had enhanced my credibility with my colleagues. Moreover, by making the dean and department chairmen aware of this evidence of my proficiency as an editor and writer, I demonstrated that I would be a suitable candidate if any of them should be asked to recommend someone for a big editing and writing task. This led directly to several interesting assignments in the following years.

I had read every word of the book, much of it several times. Enough of it had stuck to my cerebral cortex long enough to turn me into a walking, talking encyclopedia of all things to do with all aspects of public health.  This useful attribute appealed to the Law Reform Commission among others, and I was recruited as a consultant on aspects of environmental health on which the Law Reform Commission was drafting revisions to environmental law.  This was a fascinating experience. Working with an elite group of lawyers, I began to comprehend how lawyers’ minds work. I began to understand the difference between scientific and legal interpretation of the meaning of “evidence” – understanding that was consolidated by discussion after I reviewed the evidence for and against the assertion that urea formaldehyde foam insulation (UFFI) was harmful to health, perhaps was a carcinogen. I’ll say more about this too in a future post.  

I’d sent a copy of the book to Kerr White, current president of the IEA. At the time the IEA needed to identify and appoint a compiler and editor for the proposed glossary or dictionary of epidemiology, a task which landed in the lap of the IEA Executive when Anita Bahn died within weeks of beginning work on this project.  As I was the only recognized epidemiologist who had worked with Anita Bahn on the project, Kerr would probably have considered me as a candidate for this even if I hadn’t given him evidence of my ability as an editor, but undoubtedly the existence of this big book and my role in it helped to convince other members of the IEA executive that I was well qualified to take on this task.  There is so much to say about the pleasant task of editing the Dictionary of Epidemiology that I’ll postpone a detailed description until later.

Another recipient of a copy was Gerry Dafoe, executive director of the Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA). He, or perhaps that year’s president of CPHA, was sufficiently impressed to invite me to become editor of the Canadian Journal of Public Health when the position became vacant early in 1981.  I accepted it with pleasure and set about elevating the quality of published articles and improving the journal in other ways to the best of my ability.  I’ll have more to say about this also in another post.

In 1980, China was just beginning to open up to the west. Carl Amberg, an eminent professor at Carleton University went there and took his wife who worked in my department. When she came back she gave me names and addresses of department heads of public health and epidemiology in several universities in China. Casting more bread upon the waters, I sent a copy to department heads in Shanghai with a note, saying it was a gesture of friendship, and dropping a loud clear hint that I would like to visit China and could come if a university department head in China were to invite me.  My ploy succeeded. I briefly described my two visits to China in a post on June 14, 2012.

Undoubtedly the book contributed to my reputation in many other ways, but the final one I’ll mention here is the two American professional organizations, the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine (ATPM) and the American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM). I was elected to the board of directors of ATPM and to the board of regents of ACPM, and became president of ATPM in 1983-84, and entered the sequence to the presidency of ACPM in 1985  (president-elect 1985-87; president 1987-89; past president 1989-91).  Several interesting and important tasks came my way as a direct result of election to these high positions, notably leadership roles in establishing annual spring meetings of ATPM, ACPM and other organizations, and establishment of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, as well as commemorative plaques and the like, which grace the walls of my office.