Body and mind. Historical essays in honour of F B Smith. Graeme Davison, Pat Jalland, Wilfred Prest, editors. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2009 (ix + 243 pp). ISBN 978 0 522 85717 7.

Francis Barrymore “Barry” Smith, Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University (ANU), is one of Australia’s most outstanding and influential historians. This festschrift is a fine collection of essays by a very well respected group of historians, all of whose work has in some way been influenced by Smith.

Retiring in 1997 (to continue his work as a Visiting Fellow), Smith spent most of his career at the ANU. Much of his work was concerned with British, rather than Australian, social and medical history and, reflecting this, six of the 10 chapters focus on aspects of British history. These include Alex Tyrrell’s delightful study of the mid 19th century British water cure, Pat Jalland’s thought-provoking piece on the treatment of tens of thousands of civilians killed during the Blitz, and Joanna Bourke’s insightful discussion of “malingering” and the complex relationships between members of the medical profession, especially psychologists, and those who seek to be certified as officially sick.

Among the essays dealing with Australian topics is one on a major study in historical demography and epidemiology currently still being conducted by Janet McCalman, Ruth Morley and Gita Mishra. It draws on a range of sources of historical statistics, particularly the records of the Lying-in Hospital for Melbourne, and follows large numbers of individual lives from birth to death, by linking to other sources such as birth, marriage and death records, criminal records, school records and war service records.

The essay “To die without friends: solitaries, drifters and failures in a new world society” examines the relationship between poverty, marginalisation and the absence of family and friends.

Australian chapters also include Peter Edward’s study of Agent Orange and Australia’s Vietnam veterans, Philippa Mein Smith’s history of the concept of “Australasia” and Susan Margarey’s biographical sketch of Catherine Helen Spence (writer, preacher, reformer, feminist and leading woman in public affairs in Australia at the end of the 19th century).