Book excerpt: Wide Neighborhoods is the autobiography of Mary Breckinridge, the remarkable founder of the Frontier Nursing Service. It is equally the story of the unique organization she founded in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky in 1925 -- the Frontier Nursing Service. Riding out on horseback, the FNS nurse-midwives, the first of their profession in this country, proved that high mortality rates and malnutrition need not be the norm in remote rural areas. The FNS, through its example and through the graduates of tis school of midwifery and family nursing, has exerted a lasting influence on family health care throughout the world.