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Edward Davies, The North Wales quarry hospitals and the health and welfare of the quarrymen , Gwynedd Archives Service, Gwynedd Council, 2003, pp. vii, 311, illus. (hardback 0-901337-83-8).

This important study represents the fruits of long, exemplary research by a practitioner of that honourable tradition of the doctor-scholar. Dr Eddie Davies has remained true to his roots as a native of the north-west Wales slate district of Blaenau Ffestiniog, spending thirty-eight years of his career serving the population of Cerrigydrudion, an upland village which bestrides Telford's Chester to Holyhead coaching road. Over those years he has played significant roles as long-serving editor of the Welsh-language medical journal Cennad, and in promoting the activities of the History of Medicine Society for Wales. In his retirement he has laboured to produce a tour de force of synthesis, simultaneously a history of medical institutions, a region, an industry, and a culture. As such, the title of the book might be thought to do the author's achievement a disservice. 
 
Around six of the fifteen chapters are devoted almost entirely to the quarry hospitals. These are amongst the earliest examples of an occupational health service anywhere in Britain. The Penrhyn Quarry Hospital was opened in 1825, the Oakeley in 1848, the Dinorwig in 1860 and the Llechwedd in 1888. These small institutions dealt with a large number of amputations, head and eye injuries. The quarry doctors, many of whom were expert surgeons and experienced general practitioners, were quick to adopt new techniques, such as the use of ether, antiseptic spray and X-ray equipment. The hospitals, which were funded by both employers and workmen, evolved to provide some services for the local community, but their origins were in direct response to the hazards faced by the quarrymen. 
 
The photograph on the dust cover of an injured quarryman being carrried in a box stretcher from the Cwmorthin quarry in Blaenau Ffestiniog, conveys the scene. Employed in dangerous work carried out in the adverse climatic conditions of a mountainous environment, slate workers' risks were compounded by their generally poor physique and conditions of material existence. Work accidents were frequent and related to many features of the extractive, processing and transportation aspects of the industry. In describing these practices the author displays an awesome command of the minutiae of quarrying techniques and working practices. 
 
The book provides invaluable insights into the struggles of the slate industry's medical practitioners to establish their professional hegemony by challenging the attempts to have them work alongside “bone-setters”. Davies conveys the complexities of the relationship between doctoring and “quackery” through his account of the bone-setting traditions of families like the Isaacs of Cwm Pennant who eventually produced “conventional” practitioners of some distinction. 
 
Well illustrated with photographs, the book also includes appendices with quarry injury/mortality statistics and constitutions/rules of workers' welfare societies. These serve to underline the earlier point that this is truly a “total” history by an organic intellectual immersed in the life and culture of his “bro” (locality) and its neighbouring communities. Even should he not achieve elevation within the orders of the Gorsedd of Bards, he most certainly deserves to become honorary MO to the Annales School! 
 
Since the author draws on numerous Welsh sources, the book will prove invaluable to researchers unacquainted with the language. However, one word of advice for readers not intimately familiar with these mountainous districts of north Wales. Given the centrality of kinship and place in the construction of Welsh identities and in particular the histories of medical dynasties and associated quarrying communities, the average reader would find their access to this rich source of information facilitated by prior acquisition of the relevant ordinance survey maps.