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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 31, 1993                   TAG: 9301310228
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: F-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Reviewed by SIDNEY BARRITT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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BRINGING MEDICAL CARE TO W.VA. COAL TOWNS

MINERS AND MEDICINE: WEST VIRGINIA MEMORIES. By Claude A. Frazier, M.D., University of Oklahoma Press. Price not listed.

Claude Frazier, the son of a coal camp physician, spent his boyhood in McDowell County, W.Va.

In those mining towns, isolated hollers of coal country, The Company was everything: owner of the land and mineral rights, owner of the only store within miles, owner of the miners' homes and provider of medical care through the person of one more mine employee - the company doctor.

Working conditions were appalling, as the tales of death and dismemberment tell. Housing wasn't much better, although there was plenty of coal for heat. The effort to provide medical care under these conditions would daunt any physician in the current era, but those doctors did their utmost and did provide with dedication and ingenuity.

Dr. Frazier recounts this story using published historical sources supplemented with anecdotes from his own memory, from the people themselves and their oral tradition, and from nurses and physicians recalling their youthful service.

The prose is plain and simple. The few times it shines are in direct quotations from the stores of someone's memory. Most of this lode has been mined before, most memorably by the recently deceased Harry Caudill in his work, "Night Comes to the Cumberlands." With closer editing, the chapters in this book dealing strictly with medicine could be a useful appendix to Caudill's book.

Sidney Barritt is a Roanoke physician.

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