Occupational Tumors and Allied Diseases. HUEPER, W. [Wilhelm] C. [CARSON, Rachel]

xxviii, 896 pp. Original cloth. Bookplate of Walter R. Steiner Medical Library of the Hartford Medical Society on front pastedown. Perforation stamp of Walter R. Steiner Medical Library on title page (the perforations are hard to see, but are more visible when seen from verso of the title page; see photo). Very Good. First Edition. "First Printing" is printed on verso of title page. Quoting Wikipedia: "Dr. Wilhelm Carl Hueper . . . was an early pioneer in the field of occupational medicine, and was the first director of the Environmental Cancer Section of the National Cancer Institute, holding that post from 1948 to 1964. . . . His 1942 work 'Occupational Tumors and Allied Diseases' [offered here] is recognized as the first medical textbook listing cancers and their occupational causes." Wikipedia also states this about Hueper: "Dr. Hueper's most publicly remembered role may have been to influence Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring. In her book, Carson credited Hueper with being the first person to recognize the connection between pollution, occupationally-used chemicals and cancer. . . ." It is accurate that Hueper played a large role in Carson's work. In her Acknowledgments in "Silent Spring" (p. ix), Carson wrote: "I could not have completed the book without the generous help of these specialists". Hueper is then named along with 14 others. But it would be a mistake to treat the 15 as of equal importance to Carson. If you look for each of the 15 in the Index, several are not listed at all, while the others, with the exception of Hueper, have few page citations. In contrast, Hueper is cited, and often quoted, by Carson in many more places: 18 (WH quoted on sprays containing arsenic), 50 (WH quoted on contaminated drinking water), 221-223 (WH's 1942 book is mentioned), 225 (WH cited for DDT as a carcinogen), 235 (WH cited for urethane as a carcinogen), 239 (WH quoted), 240-242 (WH quoted). Robert Proctor, in his book "Cancer Wars" (1995), writes of Hueper, "the century's most profound and colorful critic of occupational cancer hazards. Wilhelm C. Hueper (1894-1978) is largely forgotten today, but for three or four decades in the middle of this century he was the most powerful American champion of the view that increased exposure to industrial chemicals was producing unprecedented levels of cancer. He was one of the first to study radiation-induced leukemia, and the first American to document a lung cancer hazard in the chromium industry. He directed the National Cancer Institute's Environmental Cancer Section from 1948 to 1964, and he provided decisive testimony at the congressional hearings that led to the 1958 Delaney Amendment of the Food and Drug Act, barring synthetic carcinogens in foods. Rachel Carson praised his 1942 Occupational Tumors and Allied Diseases as the 'classic monograph' on the topic; a whole chapter of her Silent Spring is devoted to environmental cancer, drawing heavily from Hueper's work" (p. 36). In his book "House of Life, Rachel Carson at Work" (1972), Paul Brooks writes about Hueper "whose work is referred to at some length in Silent Spring. . . . 'Dr. Hueper,' she concluded, 'now gives DDT the definite rating of a 'chemical carcinogen.' As the manuscript progressed, she sent portions of it to Dr. Hueper for review, especially those sections dealing with cancer hazards related to pesticides. During the personal interviews that followed, he found her (as he recalls later) 'a sincere, unusually well informed scientist possessing not only an unusual degree of social responsibility but also having the courage and ability to express and fight for her convictions and principles . . . When the storm of abuse and denunciation broke, Rachel Carson stood up well against her accusers because her scientific facts were sound and valid and her interpretations were reasonable' (p. 255)." In her biography of Rachel, Carson, Linda Lear details the interactions between Carson and Hueper.