51¹ú²úÊÓƵ

The City of Edinburgh's battle against disease and illness over the past 100 years is the subject of a book launched at Edinburgh 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ this week.

Public Health: Past, Present and Future was written to celebrate the founding of the Usher Institute of Public Health in 1902 by the university and the eponymous brewing family. The book grew out of a conference marking the institute's centenary in 2002.

Edinburgh was the first university in Britain to have a department of public health and the book charts its fight to beat 20th-century killers such as smallpox and tuberculosis, as well as new diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C.

The book is edited by Edinburgh's Raj Bhopal, and John Last of Ottowa 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ.