?The North? is more than just a geographical area. It is a place of cold and hardship on the one hand and of welcome solitude and opportunity on the other ? a place requiring adaptation and compromise. The medical practitioners responsible for providing healthcare to the populations of these regions endured the daily hardships of surviving in such an inhospitable environment and had the added burden of negotiating between different cultures. They represented the state and external authority and brought new innovations to previously isolated communities. This volume of thirteen essays focuses on the health and treatment of the peoples of northern Europe and North America over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Numerous themes and topics are raised that are relevant not only to a discussion of how medicine was practised in rural and remote areas of the recent past, but also to current attempts to improve medical care in more isolated regions of the world.