At a time when the proper role of the state is under constant review, its relationship to the private sphere is a matter of considerable public concern, this text places this debate in historical context.

Medicine and health - historical and contemporary perspectives. Anne Borsay and Dorothy Porter; public utility or private enterprise? water and health in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Richard Coopey and Owen Roberts; from private grief to public testimony - suicides in Wales, 1832-1914, Pamela Michael; the early school medical service in Wales - public care or private responsibility?, David Hirst; a proletarian public sphere - working-class provision of medical services and care in south Wales, c.1900-1948, Steven Thompson; public service and private ambition - nursing at the King Edward VII Hospital, Cardiff during the First World War, Sara Brady; "fit to work" - representing rehabilitation on the South Wales coalfield during the Second World War, Anne Borsay; private lives and pulic bodies - childbirth in post-war Swansea, Susan Pitt; "it's a funny job really" - the contradictions of health visiting, Anthea Symonds; water, health and the public/private interface, Mark Drakeford; contrasting perspectives of inequalities in health and in medical care, David Greaves.