Observations on the history of epidemiology in western New York, 1843-1960.

Epidemiology has a rich tradition in western New York State, beginning with the classic study by Austin Flint of a waterborne typhoid fever outbreak in North Boston in 1843. Other important investigations included the study of the Buffalo poliomyelitis epidemic of 1912, by Wade Hampton Frost, which provided a comprehensive characterization of the epidemiology of the disease, and the first case-control study of cigarette smoking and lung cancer, by Morton L. Levin et al., conducted at the Roswell Park Memorial Cancer Institute in the 1940s. Other studies carried out before 1960 and included in the review deal with additional typhoid fever outbreaks, tuberculosis, breast cancer, and coronary heart disease.