678 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



MEDICINE 



Physiology and National Needs. Edited by W. D. Halliburton, M.D., 

 LL.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S. Professor of Physiology, King's College, 

 London. [Pp. vii + 162.] (London : Constable & Co., 1919. Price 

 8s. 6d net.) 



In Physiology and National Needs Prof. Halliburton edits an attractive 

 series of lectures on the relation of physiology to various aspects of human 

 life. 



In the first of these the editor himself deals broadly with the problem 

 of food. Prof. Halliburton, not unnaturally, extols the virtues of the 

 " Handmaid of Medicine " and the valour of those who woo her. On the 

 other hand, he is not fair to the clinicians — the " exceptions " are pretty 

 numerous. 



In the second and third Profs. Hopkins and Harden respectively discourse 

 on the accessory factors of diet. We note with satisfaction the reference 

 to Cheadle's pioneer work on scurvy and rickets ; and would have seen, 

 with equal pleasure, allusion to Bland Sutton in connection with the latter 

 disease. 



Prof. Noel Paton, in the fourth lecture, discusses physiology in relation 

 to gas warfare, and to wound shock, concluding with an account of his work 

 on parathyroid tetany. 



Prof. Dendy (fifth lecture) deals with the difficulties incidental to the 

 storage of grain and with the means of surmounting them. 



Physicial training is the subject of the sixth and last discourse. Prof. 

 Pembrey, emphatic as ever, urges the disadvantage of drill as compared with 

 spontaneous exercise of the muscular system. 



These lectures, of great and varied interest, are addressed to the general 

 reader rather than to the student of academic physiology, and are to be 

 recommended to all as a valuable and enjoyable collection of physiological 

 knowledge. 



W. L. S. 



Functional Nerve Disease. Edited by H. Crichton Miller, M.A., M.D. 

 [Pp. xi + 205.] (London : Henry Frowde, Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 

 1920. Price 85. 6d. net.) 



This is a useful volume because it is the record of the experience of eleven 

 well-known physicians (including the editor) who have treated functional 

 nervous states in the soldier during the war and since. The editor contributes 

 two chapters, one upon the " Mother-complex," in which he suggests a 

 relationship between neuropathic symptoms and inebriety in the father. 



With the possible exception of Drs. George Riddock and Edwin Bramwell 

 and certainly of Dr. William McDougall, who is emphatic as to his position, 

 the contributors follow the teachings of Freud, or the Zurich School, and relate 

 their views in harmony with the doctrines of this school, stress being therefore 

 laid upon the mental rather than upon the physical origin of functional 

 disturbances, especially their origin through emotional conflicts and their 

 relation to the sexual instinct, using in their description the nomenclature and 

 terminology of their teacher. The editor has no use for the materialist, who 

 fails to regard emotion as the cause of disease, and Dr. Riddock asserts that 

 disordered function does not necessarily imply disordered structure, for " in 

 disease alteration of function precedes destruction of tissue," hence the signifi- 

 cance of subjective phenomena, whilst Dr. Bramwell lays stress upon the 

 psychical effect of the physical measures of relief. 



Dr. E. Prideaux, in a clear and well-reasoned chapter, gives the dififerent 

 views of the origin of neuroses and psychoses, but he asserts that it is in the 

 domain of sex that in peace-time the key to the origin of hysteria may be found. 



