Disease in Milk; The Remedy Pasteurization. The Life Work of Nathan Straus.

Lina Gutherz Straus; Nathan Straus

E.P.Dutton & Company, 1917

[Association copy, inscribed by Nathan Straus to Leona Baumgartner on front end page.] Bound in publisher's cloth. Hardcover. Good binding and cover. Shelf wear. Some discoloration to spine and boards. Small tear to tail of spine. Bookplate of Baumgartner on verso. 

"Nathan Straus was an owner of Macy's department store in New York City and a pioneer in public health and child welfare. He has been considered the person who did the most for the city's welfare in the first quarter of the 20th century. Straus first achieved prominence as a merchant, becoming in 1896 a co-owner with his brother Isidor Straus of R.H. Macy and Company. His philanthropic work began in the economic depression of 1892 when he distributed food and coal in New York City and supplied pasteurized milk to young children in 36 American cities, thus lowering the infant mortality rate. By 1920 he had established 297 milk-distribution depots in the United States and abroad. In 1909 Straus built the first tuberculosis preventorium for children in Lakewood, N.J., and he provided food for the poor during the harsh winter of 1914–15 in New York City. The last 20 years of his life, largely devoted to public-health work in Palestine, resulted in the building of two major health centers and many child-welfare stations." 

"From 1954 to 1962, Leona Baumgartner, M.D., served as the first woman commissioner of New York City's Department of Health. She used her position to bring no-nonsense health and hygiene advice to millions of Americans via regular television and radio broadcasts, and by sending health care professionals to visit schools and church groups. Throughout her career, she broadened the scope of public health by teaching preventive medicine in easy-to-understand brochures, and helped to improve the health of New York's poorest and most vulnerable."