REVIEWS 525 



the same physiognomy everywhere, so often has the medical man. The first 

 chapters dealing with more or less ancient medicine are, I think, the most interest- 

 ing. The two last chapters deal respectively with the beginnings of organised 

 advancement of science in the nineteenth century, and the beginnings of organised 

 preventive medicine in the twentieth century, and must have been extremely 

 difficult to write. It is a question whether the author had not better have adopted 

 another arrangement, because, at present, there is very much overlapping, owing 

 to the fact that the same man often works in very many different fields, while 

 short biographies have to be inserted here and there. Personally, I think, that I 

 would have taken each major fasciculus of medicine by itself, at least in modern 

 times, and have traced out its history as independently of other branches as 

 possible, and would then have put all the modern medical biographies together by 

 themselves in a final section. Even this would have required most exceptional know- 

 ledge, as no one man can possibly be sufficiently well acquainted with all branches 

 of medicine not to wander away from absolute accuracy at times. I certainly 

 think it would have been better if this plan had been adopted regarding the small 

 branch of medicine with which I am acquainted, namely, parts of tropical medicine. 

 As it is, there are several points which I should like to see amended in future 

 editions. I really cannot, for instance, see how F. Schaudinn did anything of any 

 importance whatever in connection with malaria, except to make bad mistakes. 

 It was not he, but Metchnikoff and Simond who first demonstrated true conjugation 

 in sporozoa. His hypothesis regarding alternation of generations in parasites of owls 

 was not only wrong, but was never based on anything approaching proof, while his 

 theory of parthenogenesis of the malaria parasites had, if possible, less than no 

 proof. No proof, also, has been given of the intramuscular conjugation of the 

 malaria parasites, claimed for another author in this book; and Grassi and 

 Bignami certainly did not show that these parasites develop only in the Anophe- 

 lines, first, because no one has shown it yet, and, secondly, because they did 

 practically no work on the subject except to make the claim, while my work and 

 previous researches on this point were much more extensive, and cost me years of 

 disappointment owing to the fact that I worked with the wrong kind of mosquito. 

 As I said in Science Progress (April 1917, p. 669), the claims of these people 

 as regards priority are not to be trusted for a moment. But these are small 

 matters, and will doubtless.be corrected later on; though I hope not on my 

 authority alone. And we owe to Dr. Garrison the establishment of an excellent 

 foundation upon which a more and more perfect structure will ultimately be built. 



R. ROSS. 



The Growth of Medicine. From the Earliest Times to about 1800. By Albert 

 H. Buck, B.A., M.D. [Pp. viii + 582, with 28 illustrations.] (New Haven : 

 Yale University Press ; London : Oxford University Press. Price *\s. net.) 



IT is a matter of regret that, owing to the crowded condition of the medical 

 curriculum, students and practitioners of medicine too often know little or nothing 

 of the profoundly interesting history of their own profession. A work which deals 

 with this attractive subject is therefore to be welcomed. It is a satisfactory sign 

 of growing interest in medical history that some American and British Univer- 

 sities are establishing voluntary or compulsory courses dealing with it for the 

 benefit of their students, while, for the practitioner, such opportunities as the 

 Historical Section of the Royal Society of Medicine in London affords are already 

 attracting much attention and are collecting a large amount of interesting material. 

 Prof. Buck's work shows evidence of much study and research in certain 



