t; 



NATURE 



[December i6, 1909 



survey of early forms of mutual dependence, such as 

 the village community in England and India and the 

 Russian mir, he shows that the Socialism, so-called, 

 of the primitive and pre-industrial epochs did not con- 

 flict with Darwinian principles. The new Socialism, 

 however, aims at stopping " the struggle for exist- 

 ence " and the elimination of "the unfit." 



Much stress is laid all through on the institution of 

 the family, which is a permanent possibility of in- 

 dividualism, and the eternal matrix of capitalism. 



The author's view is clear; he avoids irrelevancy, 

 and has the faculty of going straight for the point 

 and of illustrating it by well-chosen examples. Thus 

 he shows that "natural selection" acts only at 

 crises, such as disease or war. In an excellent 

 analysis of the work of our Post Office he emphasises 

 the only relevant points, namely, that all Government 

 departments are wasteful, and that success is really 

 the result of "private" enterprise and of "private" 

 criticism. The same truths apply to " the common 

 sense of municipal trading," a curious hybrid between 

 Socialism and Capitalism. The proofs of all this are 

 well put. 



" To abolish private industry would be to kill the 

 goose that lays the golden eggs " ; and this is what 

 the Socialist proposes to do. The two chapters which 

 demonstrate this are excellent, and the author has 

 humour as well as insight. 



The main defect of our economic system (to which 

 is ascribed the vigour of theoretical Socialism) is ex- 

 cessive accumulation of capital. The main duty of 

 the State is to act as umpire in the competitive 

 struggle. It must not itself produce. 



As to minor points calling for criticism, the ex- 

 planation of the custom of a mock "capture" of the 

 bride as a survival of "bride-lifting" from another 

 tribe is obsolete. Such ceremonies have a psycho- 

 logical origin. The bride is "captured" from her sex 

 and herself. 



The frequent objection of Socialists to Christianity 

 is hardly due to a desire to abolish the family. It is 

 rather due to its claim of "authority" and its ten- 

 dency to Erastianism. 



Yet about this book, as about previous applications 

 of " natural selection " to human society, there is 

 something unsatisfactory. F"alse analogy and am- 

 biguity of terms may result, if we forget the fact that 

 in a civilised community survival largely depends on 

 factors which do not exist in "nature." 



This doubt may be applied by the reader to chapter 

 ix., the most crucial and the least convincing. It is 

 on "natural selection among civilised peoples." 



There is something wrong about the identification 

 of the struggle for existence in the natural world 

 with our competitive system. Transfer a typical un- 

 employed to a state of nature and he would survive. 

 The conditions of the two cases are so different. 



Then what is survival-merit now? Mr. Headley 

 speaks of steadiness, honesty, and thrift. An im- 

 partial view must add unscrupulousness, low cunning, 

 incapacity for generosity, mercy, and the nobler ideals, 

 for art and culture, and — for conscientious work. 

 Moral values are, of course, a matter of time and 

 place, but there is such a thing as dehumanisation. 

 NO. 2094, VOL. 82] 



Add physicaf survival-merit, and consider if we are 

 not evolving a type which has been described as "a 

 race of men, small, ill-formed, disease-stricken, hard 

 to kill." 



He speaks of our lowest class as living in a 

 "primitive" fashion. By its "best blood" the next 

 stratum is reinvigorated. Here is ambiguity ot 

 terms. 



The selection going on under our competitive 

 system is not necessarily producing "the splendid 

 pattern " of which Mr. Headley and the poet have 

 dreamt. A. E. Crawley. 



A HERO OF MEDICINE. 

 Semnielweis : his Life and Doctrine. By Sir William 



J. Sinclair. Pp. x + 36g. (Manchester: University 



Press, 1909.) Price ys. 6d. net. 

 " T N the history of midwifery there is a dark page, 



J- and it is headed Semmelweis." Semmelweis 

 was a prophet, and he was misunderstood by the 

 people he came to save. The services he rendered 

 mankind cannot be overestimated. His discovery was 

 epoch-making. He established the cause of puerperal 

 fever, and. threw light on all septic conditions. Before 

 his time the cause of wound infection was not under- 

 stood. Semmelweis proved that puerperal fever was 

 analogous to wound fever, both being due to con- 

 tamination from putrid organic matter. The cause 

 of jjuerperal fever having been established, Semmel- 

 weis worked at its prophylaxis. He insisted on the 

 cleanliness of the patient and her surroundings, and 

 sketched the principles which underlie the antiseptic 

 and aseptic treatment of wounds, and so laid the 

 foundation for modern surgery, gynaecology, and 

 obstetrics. During his life Semmelweis was mis- 

 understood and- misrepresented ; he met with opposi- 

 tion, jealousy, and hatred from his own profession ; 

 he was degraded and belittled ; yet, to-day, his con- 

 clusions are universally accepted and form the founda- 

 tion of surgical thought. 



There should be a wide public, lay as well as 

 medical, for a book as full of historical, scientific 

 and human interest as this " Life of Semmetweis.'" 

 It is a just tribute to the memory of a very great rrian. 

 The only criticism which might be made is that the 

 last hundred pages, dealing with discredited contem- 

 porary opinions, might have been curtailed. The 

 early chapters give a vivid account of the conditions 

 under which Semmelweis worked as student and 

 assistant in the great lying-in hospital of Vienna. 

 His attention was soon arrested and his heart wrung 

 by the appalling death-rate among the patients, and 

 he resolved to find the cause of the scourge which 

 decimated the hospital. Broadly, the facts were 

 these : the mortality among women delivered in the 

 hospital, always higher than that among those con- 

 fined at home, suddenly rose to an unprecedented 

 figure in the year 1822, when the anatomical basis of 

 instruction was introduced into the curriculum of the 

 medical students. ' The students used to pass from 

 the dissecting-room to the labour wards, and from 

 this time the hospital mortality rose until at one 

 period nearly half the patients died. The lying-in 



