Midtowners Lost and Found: Search and Assessment—Tactics and Results

One of the first of the general population public health investiga­ tions ever fielded, the original Midtown Study had to improvise its way through a newly opened research frontier. From total immersion in the “here and now” of an untrodden stand of metaphorical trees, we did not envision the forest’s enlarged scientific significance a genera­ tion later. Myopic short-sightedness beset the young behavioral sci­ ences of the period.