Only one hundred years ago, even in the world's wealthiest nations, children died in great numbers-of diarrhea, diphtheria and measles, of scarlet fever and meningitis. Culture was shaped by these deaths; diaries and letters recorded them, poets and writers wrote about and lamented them. Not even the high and mighty could escape: presidents and titans of industry lost their children, the poor and powerless lost theirs even more frequently.

The near-conquest of infant and child mortality is one of our greatest human achievements. Perri Klass pulls the story together for the first time, paying tribute to scientists, public health advocates, and groundbreaking women doctors who brought new scientific ideas about sanitation and vaccination to families. Thanks to their work, early death is now the exception, bringing about a massive transformation in society and freeing parents to worry a lot more about a lot less.

About the Author
Perri Klass is professor of journalism and pediatrics at New York University, codirector of NYU Florence, and national medical director of Reach Out and Read. She writes the weekly column The Checkup for the New York Times.

Reviews
"A Good Time to be Born is an ambitious, elegant meditation on what the doctor-writer Perri Klass describes as one of our greatest human achievements: a reduction in child mortality... [Klass] takes the most complex human patterns of all-history, medicine, politics, art-and knits them into something unique and beautiful... This is an important book for many reasons, but that Klass has given voice to the voiceless is perhaps the most significant." -- The New York Times Book Review



Book Information
ISBN 9780393609998
Author Perri Klass
Format Hardback
Page Count 384
Imprint WW Norton & Co
Publisher WW Norton & Co
Weight(grams) 611g
Dimensions(mm) 244mm * 163mm * 33mm