374 



NATURE 



[May i«. 



!ni I 



fathoms; the sea deepens again, and Peary's sound- 

 ings found no bottom at 1500 fathoms. The existence 

 of this shallow ridjje has an important bearing on 

 the possible existence of land further to the west. 

 This question is discussed by Mr. Harris, and he 

 concludes from the tidal evidence, and the fact that 

 the flood at Point Barrow comes from the west and 

 not from the north, that there must be a wide area of 

 land or of island strewn sea to the west of the .Arctic 

 Archipelago. He estimates that there is an area ot 

 nearly half a million square miles either of land, ot 

 islands, or of shoals still undiscovered in the Arctic 

 Ocean to the north of the western part of North 

 America and of eastern Asia. Mr. Harris supfgests 

 that this land must extend from north of Benneti 

 Land, which is to the north of Siberia, eastward to 

 Crocker Land, and with Peary's attainment of the 

 pole the setiiement of this problem is the most in 

 teresting geographical question loft in the Arctic 

 Ocean. 



ENERGY AND THE ORGANISM. 

 Vicious Circles in Disease. By Dr. J. B. Hurry. 

 Pp. xiv+186. (London : J. and A. Churchill, 1911.) 

 Price 6s. net. 



A FEW days before this volume was placed in the 

 hands of the reviewer he had been watching 

 for a few minutes the race of a small brook into a 

 larger but more sluggish stream. Curiously near the 

 inrush a wisp of straws lay almost at rest, circling 

 slowly round and round, but not swept with other 

 wisps and leaves into the main current. This arrest 

 was due to a still but deep whirlpool formed by the 

 different velocities of the waters at the angle of meet- 

 ing. Li^ht objects which skirted this eddy swiftly 

 vanished on their way to the sea ; those caught in 

 it were imprisoned. However, by placing a walking 

 stick tangentially to the eddy, now one straw, now 

 another, would dart aside, and, catching a streak of 

 the main current, would speed off into liberty. 



This humble little parable may serve to illustrate 

 Dr. Hurry's interesting volume on vicious circles of 

 disease. The author's message may be summed up 

 thus : In health the confluent or congruent streams 

 of energy should work in reciprocal harmony for the 

 several ends of the organism as a whole; but in 

 disorder this agent or that, alien or home-grown, may 

 strike tangentially upon one or more of such streams 

 and form a vortex, twisting the lines of function and 

 setting up, in one or more situations, a focus of 

 wasting energy, and, it may be, a trap for alien or 

 degraded products which should be run out of the 

 system. Now at some point in this circle the gyrat- 

 ing lines may be cut, the eddy may be diverted,* and 

 the lines of energy released to their normal directions. 

 The hound which had turned to hunting its own tail 

 may be put again on the track. 



Among the absurd axioms which we are apt to re- 

 peat without thought is that which unconditionally 

 impugns the practical impulse to " treat symptoms " ; 

 but in the majority of cases — in all for which we have 

 no specific antidote — no other course is open to the 

 NO. 2168, VOL. 86] 



practitioner. Moreover, even where we ! 



specific, to refrain from treating symptom^ 

 physician's, is not the patient's point of view, in 

 asks for cure ; but also for relief. Now these observa- 

 tions and maxims of Dr. Hurry emphasise a further 

 truth — that in so doing we may be cutting across — at 

 any point, it matters not where — a "vicious circle." 

 To disper.se a vortex, expending energy in mere fric- 

 tion, may serve even to disperse the malady; at least 

 it may moderate its intensity, or dispel vexatious 

 symptoms. But often the whole trouble consists in 

 such a vortex, and in a single one; in these cases, 

 therefore, of which the author gives many an in- 

 structive instance, to treat a symptom is to cure a 

 disease ; for the conception of disease as an " entity " 

 ought to be banished even from the language of the 

 modern physician. Sometimes it is the knife which 

 must take the place of the walking stick of the 

 parable ; but happily milder means often suffice to 

 divert the currents into the normal channels, but not, 

 as Dr. Hurr>" inadvertently says (p. 167), to "reverse" 

 the circular movement. This cannot happen — or, 

 more accurately, never dnr-<. nynlution r ■ : -* : — 

 by the way it came. 



There is one more demur. Dr. Hurry at' 

 scarcely to realise, or fully to impress upon us, t 

 factor of "organic memory" in these phases 

 function, the bent of biological matter to repeat wh. 

 it has done before; a faculty on which development 

 and purpose depend. In vicious circles every g>'ration 

 deepens the groove, an abnormal habit is formed, - 

 that arrest of such a local waste of energy and svn , 

 a distress becomes more and more difiicult ; her* ; ; 

 enters the problem of " faith healing," of the stronj^' r 

 tangential force which is to dissipate the vortex ai i 

 redistribute the currents of energy. The longer ti 

 " habit " — the fixture of organic memory — the hard' : 

 the impulse needed to "break the circle," ior t! 

 habit has become independent of thf r.r'.ri;,-,;] ^i. . 

 which indeed had often vanished. 



Dr. Hurry does not pretend for a mom. in to navr- 

 discovered this notion of vicious circles, but he has made 

 it his own ; it is one often remarked upon by medical 

 practitioners, but no one has presented the subject 

 systematically to us before in a printed book. But 

 both in lectures and practice I remember that the 

 Teales, of Leeds — especially Mr. Pridgin Teale — 

 taught the principle emphatically, and, if they did not 

 publish the experience, put it variously into practice. 

 .\nd so it has been, no doubt, with many another 

 physician ; but of this the author is well aware, while 

 he has himself the merit of perceiving the need of 

 a systematic study of the problem, of adapting the 

 principle with much ingenuity to explain many morbid 

 conditions, and of illustrating the practice by interest- 

 ing examples. Out of his careful clinical studies and 

 large experience Dr. Hurr\' is justified in pointing to 

 the great array of evidence which he has brought 

 forward in his chapters on the systems of the body, 

 and formulated in diagram, and in declaring that 

 this aspect of medicine " is one which no practitioner 

 of the ars niedcndi can afford to neglect." 



C. .Allbutt. 



