This book offers an illuminating introduction to many aspects of health and society in twentieth century Wales, ranging from public health, to personal life-styles and household budgets, birth control and the incidence of deaths from childbirth. Chapters variously feature the life of an eminent doctor, and refugee doctors who came to Wales, and describe the training of nurses, under the close supervision of matron, in a district hospital in north Wales. The book analyses changes both from above and below. Drawing on newly released official government papers, the official historian of the NHS reveals the full extent of the negotiations which preceded the devolution of health administration powers to the Welsh Office in 1969.