Promises Kept: The University of Mississippi Medical Center.

Promises Kept: The University of Mississippi Medical Center. By Janis Quinn. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi for the University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2005. Pp. xii, 226. $35.00, ISBN 1-57806805-3.)

Most schools of medicine have had their histories published, including Bertram M. Bernheim's The Story of the Johns Hopkins: Four Great Doctors arm the Medical School They Created (New York, 1948) and Chester R. Burns's 660-page opus detailing the history of the University of Texas Medical Branch (Saving Lives, Training Caregivers, Making Discoveries: A Centennial History of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston [Austin, 2003]). Rather narrow, though no less important, are histories of single departments.

Lucie R. Bridgforth's Medical Education in Mississippi: A History of the School of Medicine (Jackson, 1984) focused only on the school of medicine. In contrast, Janis Quinn's book encompasses the history of all the schools of the medical center, its personalities, and its hospital. This broad scope allows the reader to develop a complete picture of the convoluted and intertwined political, social, and academic forces that were in play during formation and expansion of the Medical Center at Jackson, Mississippi. It is written in a style similar to that of James Michener, beginning with the geological importance of Yazoo clay in the construction of buildings of substantial size.

Using multiple primary sources, including personal interviews, minutes of important meetings, and letters, Quinn has put together a very person-oriented, fascinating history of Mississippi's major medical center. Her extremely detailed descriptions of the personalities involved, the political and social controversies, the state's financial difficulties, and the ingenuity of the medical center's faculty and administrators in overcoming these problems is a fascinating story.

Of the 196 pages of text, 177 are devoted to the School of Medicine. The last chapter touches on the Schools of Nursing, Allied Health (later to be re-named Health Related Professions), Dentistry, and Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences. Two chapters are rightfully devoted to the Guyton family and its legacy. Billy S. Guyton, an ophthalmologist and essentially the founding father of the school, and his son, Arthur, are undoubtedly the best-known personalities associated with the school. Arthur Guyton, a budding academic surgeon, overcame his polio disability, laid the foundation for the Department of Physiology at the Medical School, and is its best-known faculty member. His textbook of medical physiology is used worldwide.

It is not surprising that the Medical Center itself and its accomplishments from 1955 to the present sound quite grand. To put things in perspective, during this same time period Watson and Crick described DNA, organ transplantation was begun, and the Mayo Clinic Medical School opened in 1972. Those who relish insight into the history of academic medical personalities, social change, and political controversy in the Deep South will enjoy this volume.

ROBERT KIMBROUGH

Texas Tech School of Medicine