This collection of eight essays examines the health, disease, and medical care of the American West—an area flanked by the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada, and Cascade Mountains. Topics include Mormons and the Thomsonian Movement in the nineteenth century, the silicosis epidemic in hardrock mining, Native American health, frontier nursing, and Chinese medicine.

Martha HIldreth is a professor of history at the University of Nevada, Reno. She received her PhD from the University of California, Riverside.

Bruce Moran joined the faculty of the University of Nevada in 1976. His primary areas of study are the history of science and early medicine as well as European cultural and intellectual history. Professor Moran is the author of numerous books, over forty journal articles and over fifty book reviews. He has been a stipendiate of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Murhardsche Bibliothek, Kassel (Germany), a Guest Professor of the Institute of the History of Pharmacy, Marburg University, a visiting scholar of the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, and is a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. From September 2005 to July 2006 he will be Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Anatomy, University College London, and affiliate at the Welcome Trust Centre for one History of Medicine. He has also been named a University Foundation Professor at the University of Nevada, and has received research grants from the Humboldt Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Science Foundation.