NATURE 



341 



THURSDAY, JULY 



SIR 



1919. 



WILLIAM TURNER. 

 Sir William Turner, K.C.B., F.R.S., Professor 

 of Anatomy and Principal and Vice-Chancellor 

 of the University of Edinburgh. A Chapter in 

 Medical History. By Dr. A. Log-an Turner. 

 Pp. XV + 514. (Edinburgh and London : William 

 Blackwood and Sons, 1919.) Price 185. net. 

 /^F all the distinguished men who have passed 

 ^^ away during the years of the war, few or 

 none have shown more devotion to, and done 

 greater service for, the institution and the pro- 

 fession to which they belonged than the late Sir 

 William Turner. 



The life-history of a man who, without money 

 or influence to facilitate his progress, became 

 demonstrator, professor, principal, and vice- 

 chancellor in a great university, and president of 

 the General Medical Council, is naturally an 

 attractive subject for a biographer, and, provided 

 that the writer of the history has had an intimate 

 acquaintance with his subject and has a thorough 

 appreciation of the circumstances of the period in 

 which the events dealt with took place, the bio- 

 graphy is likely to be both interesting and instruc- 

 tive. 



Fortunately the conditions have been adequately 

 fulfilled, and Dr. Logan Turner's history of his 

 father's life and of the circumstances of the time 

 in which it was lived shows that he has inherited 

 two at least of his father's characteristics — full 

 grasp of the subject to be dealt with, and the 

 faculty of clear exposition which renders promi- 

 nent and comprehensive all its chief features. 



Sir William Turner was a many-sided man ; he 

 was interested in teaching, government, adminis- 

 tration, and research ; he dealt, therefore, with 

 many problems, and left them all in a clearer 

 position than that in which he found them ; but, 

 since his researches commenced in his early days 

 as a teacher and ended only with his life, and as 

 his work as a developer, organiser, and governor 

 extended over the greater part of the time that he 

 was connected with the L'niversity of Edinburgh, 

 his many activities in the various spheres over- 

 lapped one another to a very large extent. This 

 has been recognised by his biographer, who has 

 dealt with the events of the history, not in strict 

 chronological order, but, to quote his own words, 

 " rather in the form of a series of sections, each 

 more or less complete in itself." 



The book commences with an account of the 

 boy, William Turner, following him from Lan- 

 caster to London, and from London to Edinburgh ; 

 then it touches upon his early difficulties, anxieties, 

 and successes as a demonstrator under Goodsir ; 

 afterwards comes the period of work as professor 

 of anatomy, and in that section the author dis- 

 cusses the reasons for the rise and fall of the 

 number of the students in the anatomy class in 

 three decennial periods. The succeeding section | 

 deals with Sir William's scientific work, which I 

 NO. 2592, VOL. 103] 



covered very wide and varied ground, though the 

 greater part of it was in connection with marine 

 mammals and anthropology. 



The remaining half of the book is devoted to 

 Sir William's work in the Senatus Academicus ; 

 his association with the Medical Act of 1886, and 

 the Universities (Scotland) Act of 1889; the pro- 

 gress and extension of the Medical School of 

 Edinburgh during his periods of office as pro- 

 fessor and principal ; and it concludes with a 

 summary of his character in relation to his 

 administrative work. 



Such a bald outline of the plan on which the 

 biography is written gives no idea of the entranc- 

 ing history of the times during which the work 

 was done, which the author has made the setting 

 for the life-history of his subject, and into which 

 he has introduced a series of letters which passed 

 between Sir William and the numerous distin- 

 guished men with whom he was associated in 

 connection with all the various branches and 

 phases of his work. The letters carry the reader 

 back to 1854, when John Goodsir first wrote to 

 Mr. William Turner, and thence onwards to igo8, 

 and they include several from Charles Darwin 

 which are now published for the first time. 



It is possible that the reader will not agree 

 with all the author's opinions and conclusions, but 

 he will be bound to admit that they are fair and 

 tenable, and he will find the book interesting, 

 illuminating, and eminently readable from the 

 beginning to the end. 



APPLIED PHYSIOLOGY. 

 Tlie Physiology of Industrial Organisation and the 

 Re-employment of the Disabled. By Prof. Jules 

 Amar. Translated by Bernard Miall. Edited, 

 with Notes and an Introduction, by Prof. A. F. 

 Stanley Kent. Pp. xxv + 371. (London: The 

 Library Press, Ltd. 1918.) Price 30.9. net. 



PROF. AMAR displayed, in the research 

 which formed the subject of his doctoral thesis 

 of 1909, much ingenuity in applying the some- 

 what difficult technique of indirect calorimetry to 

 the study of human energetics under unfavourable 

 conditions. Later, in various researches which are 

 described in his treatise " Le Moteur humain," the 

 same resourcefulness was manifested ; in particu- 

 lar, his measurements of the respiratory meta- 

 bolism of metal workers deservedly attracted 

 attention to a line of inquiry which was, and is, of 

 considerable practical importance. Since then the 

 French Government has utilised Prof. Amar's 

 talents in a wider field, and the present volume 

 contains a general account of his recent work. 



No reader of this book can fail to be impressed 

 by the mental acuteness, mechanical ingenuity, 

 and enthusiasm displayed by its author, particu- 

 larly, perhaps, in the concluding section, which 

 treats of the re-education of war cripples, ex- 

 pounds the principles of prosthesis, and describes, 

 with numerous diagrams and photographs, a large 

 number of valuable devices. 



Had Prof. Amar restricted the scope of his 



T 



