title: Snippets from the past: the evolution of Wade Hampton Frost's epidemiology as viewed from the American Journal of Hygiene/Epidemiology.
abstract: Wade Hampton Frost, who was a Professor of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University from 1919 to 1938, spurred the development of epidemiologic methods. His 6 publications in the American Journal of Hygiene, which later became the American Journal of Epidemiology, comprise a 1928 Cutter lecture on a theory of epidemics, a survey-based study of tonsillectomy and immunity to Corynebacterium diphtheriae (1931), 2 papers from a longitudinal study of the incidence of minor respiratory diseases (1933 and 1935), an attack rate ratio analysis of the decline of diphtheria in Baltimore (1936), and a 1936 lecture on the age, time, and cohort analysis of tuberculosis mortality. These 6 American Journal of Hygiene /American Journal of Epidemiology papers attest that Frost's personal evolution mirrored that of the emerging "early" epidemiology: The scope of epidemiology extended beyond the study of epidemics of acute infectious diseases, and rigorous comparative study designs and their associated quantitative methods came to light.
authors.forename: Alfredo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Morabia
mesh_terms: D015142:Baltimore; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000266:history*; D058872:Epidemics / Q000266:history*; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D004813:Epidemiology / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D006920:Hygiene / Q000266:history; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014492:United States Public Health Service / Q000266:history
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