766 



NATURE 



[December 9, 1922 



reviewed in this journal with the scattered references 

 to various parasitic groups in the present text-book, 

 to realise the inadequacy of the method to which 

 Parker and Haswell are bound by the rigidity of their 

 scheme. The medical and pathogenic significance of 

 the Protozoa and the occurrence of soil - Protozoa 

 deserve more than the passing mention given to them 

 on p. 51, or than the reference in vol. 2, p. 617, "a 

 terrestrial Amceba has been described." The treatment 

 of fresh-water medusae is also inadequate, and the 

 structure of the common starfish (Asterias) should 

 have been followed by an account of its development 

 now that Dr. Gemmill's account is fully accessible. 

 The account of the Vertebrata is in need of more fresh 

 and vigorous, handling, especially from the embryo- 

 logical point of view. For example, to state without 

 comment that a bird has three pancreatic ducts, as is 

 done here, is to miss a fine opportunity of showing the 

 fertilising effect of embryological interpretation. In 

 the chapter on zoological philosophy, the barest indica- 

 tion is given of developmental mechanics and of 

 regeneration, but not of the new point of view raised 

 by American work on Drosophila. The text - book 

 remains, in fact, a useful and well-illustrated account 

 of exemplary anatomy. What students want is a series 

 of small monographs on special subjects. Zoology is 

 too big a subject to be treated adequately in a single 

 work. 



Cancer and the Public. 



New Growths and Cancer. By Prof. S. IB. Wolbach. 

 (Harvard Health Talks.) Pp. 53. (Cambridge, 

 Mass. : Harvard University Press ; London : Oxford 

 University Press, 1922.) 4s. 6d. net. 



THE lay public nowadays is very much interested 

 in having healthy bodies, and its will to give 

 active co-operative help to the medical profession in 

 achieving this ideal is one of the few features of the 

 new post-war Jerusalem that does not find itself in 

 ruins. Medicine has ceased to be a cult of priests 

 practising some mystery beyond the understanding of 

 common people, and the abandonment of a professional 

 dress means, not so much a recognition that a soft hat 

 and tweeds are more comfortable than a tall hat and 

 black coat, as an open expression that medical men and 

 the lay public are fellow-workers for the common good. 

 How much may be attained by intelligent and 

 interested lay folk working jointly with doctors has 

 been illustrated lately very clearly by the disappearance 

 of summer diarrhcea and the general decrease in 

 infantile mortality — results, not of the direct applica- 

 tion of assured scientific knowledge to practical life, 

 NO. 2771, VOL. I 10] 



but of the devotion of common-sense men and women 

 in schools for mothers and similar organisations, which 

 followed quickly enough on the conviction that it was 

 shameful that a child should be ailing or should die. 

 It has been said, too, that the problem of venereal 

 diseases was solved the day that " syphilis " appeared 

 in the headlines of a reputable daily paper. It is, 

 indeed, clear that real progress in healthiness is as 

 much a question of laymen as of doctors. William 

 James says somewhere that a good deed can be perfect 

 only if it is well received as well as well done ; it is, 

 indeed, to this co-operation of both parties that we 

 must look for further advance. 



The knowledge of " medical " matters already 

 enjoyed by the public in general is very much greater 

 than it was even a few years ago. It is obviously a 

 project of high importance that it should be enlarged 

 and extended, and this is the purpose of the " Harvard 

 Health Talks " of which the present small volume is 

 one. It deals with cancer and new growths, and in 

 53 pages presents a great deal of information. So 

 excellent is the purpose, that it is with some regret 

 that we find the performance disappointing. The book 

 fails in the way that some other books of the same kind 

 have failed. The author has not realised the abyss 

 which separates his training and terminology from 

 those of his audience, and has presented them with an 

 abbreviated version of a set of lectures to professional 

 students rather than a discourse starting from their 

 point of view instead of from his own. With the 

 heartiest appreciation of the intelligence of the in- 

 habitants of Boston and Cambridge, it is difficult to 

 believe that they will get a good start in understanding 

 cancer from " the unit of structure of living matter is 

 the cell " and the rest of the conventional paragraphs 

 of dogmatic biology that form the opening chapter : 

 it is useless as well as unnecessary to ask the educated 

 man in the street to begin a new subject from a point 

 of view and in a terminology which are as Greek or 

 worse to him. The author has evidently never 

 wondered how the man who sits next to him in the 

 street-car would describe the facts if he knew them. 



Technically, too, there is room for substantial 

 difference of opinion. Pigmented congenital moles 

 are certainly not universally accepted as examples of 

 " embryonic rests," and the sentences on p. 35 attribut- 

 ing irritation of the bladder to the " embryos " of 

 Bilharzia are misleading. The practical directions 

 with which the lecture concludes are, however, admir- 

 able : do not bother about cancer being supposed to 

 be hereditary, avoid irritations, consult a medical man 

 at the first suspicion of anything amiss, and " never 

 select a doctor that you would not accept as a friend." 



A. E. B. 



