Who’s going to glamorise epidemiology? Sir Richard Doll, who died this week, was a great epidemiologist who probably saved more lives — by discouraging smoking — than any other medical breathrough of the past century, except antibiotics.

But he never won a Nobel prize, a failure of imagination by the committee responsible. Epidemiologists never do — it isn’t a sexy science.

Some would argue that it isn’t a science at all. See, for example, John Brignell’s The Epidemiologists: Have They Got Scares for You! (Brignell; www.numberwatch.co.uk), which makes fun of the more absurd claims.

James Le Fanu ploughs a similar furrow in The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine (Abacus). He’s in favour of closing down all the university epidemiology departments to stem the tide of misinformation. For Le Fanu, the heroic age of medicine is past and all that lies ahead is fudge, spin — and epidemiology. It’s true that heroes are thinner on the ground today, but isn’t that because most of the obvious problems have been solved?

For all Doll’s achievement, the endless nagging about smoking as the cause of all ills is tiresome (even if true). So let’s inhale deeply on La Diva Nicotina: The Story of How Tobacco Seduced the World by Iain Gately (Scribner). “As enjoyable and seductive as a good Silk Cut,” one reviewer called it. Dear, dear, wash out your mouth with soap.

NIGEL HAWKES

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