1346                  AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH                                       Nov., 1938
                       year, and what is it now?           How do your         immediate practical considerations.               If
                       sanitary inspectors operate and cooper-                 the form thus took on a broader gauge,
                       ate to give the health officer the in-                  it did not violate the original spirit of
                       formation      which leads to successful                interest in applicability. of           Macleod's
                       prosecution of malefactors.             We know            The latest         edition     Medicine, the
                       all we need to know about the labora-                   Physiology in Modern                         death,
                       tory technic-we want to know more                       first  since Professor Macleod's physi-
                       about the field and the court technic.                  is a collaborative work of nine trend,
                           Fundamentally (and within natural                   ologists.     Continuing the book's              ex-
                       limits): the most useful technic is the                 they have carried further its topical for
                       most used technic.                                      pansion.      This is a sound design,
                          Let us therefore adopt one good pro-                 usually what may seem-at the moment
                       cedure as a comparable method, then we                  to be a matter of purely academic in-
                       can all know what we mean when we say                   terest is ultimately found to have its
                       we permit not more than 500 organisms                   practical turn.        This new edition is,
                       per utensil surface area examined.                      therefore, a worthy successor.          To desig-
                          The most useful is that which is the                 nate outstanding features in .a book
                       most used-ceteris paribus.                              that is of such uniformly high caliber
                                                   A. P. HITCHENS              would be a factitious gesture.               It is,
                                                                               however, a gratifying commentary on
                           Macleod's Physiology in Modern                      progress in physiology that the section
                        Medicine-Edited            by     Philip    Bard,      on the neuromuscular system has come
                       with the collaboration of Henry C.                      to occupy 20 per cent of the space in the
                       Bazett, George R. Cowgill, Harry Eagle,                 present edition.                    toward early
                       Chalmers        L.    Gemmill,       Magnus        I.      With the aim at present                    often
                       Gregersen, Roy C. Hoskins, J. Ml. D.                    diagnosis of disease, an aim thatof the
                        Olmsted and Carl F. Schmidt.                  (8th     oversteps the range of sensitivity
                       ed.)     St. Louis: Mosby, 1938.               1051     usual clinical technic, the desideratum
                       pp.    Price, $8.50.                                    for   precise     procedures      is   constantly
                          After defining physiology as "an ap-                 bringing biochemical and physiological
                       plication of the known laws and facts                   methods into use.         To those desiring to
                       of physics and chemistry to explain the                 keep abreast of developments in physi-
                       functions of living matter," Professor                  ology, it should be said that this book
                       Macleod in the first edition of his book                bears the stamp of authority.           It is like-
                       Physiology and Biochemistry in Modern                   wise appropriately designed as a text-
                       Medicine argued for the wider use of                    book for medical students.
                       this science in clinical medicine.- By                                                 H. D. KRUSE
                       recourse to its methodology and fac-                       Cause and Prevention of Disease
                       tual material in the study and interpre-                -By William Harvey Perkins, M.D.
                       tation of disease, he reasoned, diagnosis               Philadelphia:       Lea & Febiger, 1938.
                       would become a science as well as an                    713 pp.      Price, $7.50.
                       art.    In putting physiology forward as                   This book most certainly presents a
                       an applied science, he laid out his book                novel viewpoint of preventive medicine.
                       accordingly to include only those topics                It appears to be more of a textbook of
                       with a practical bearing.              Later edi-       philosophy than of medicine.              It is an
                       tions, shorn of the biochemical title and                          concept that the body of man
                       of much biochemical material which had                  original           isolated interference
                       by that time asserted its own place in                  is a "falsely                                  pat-
                       medicine, reached out into the entire                   tern" and just what that means is not
                       physiological domain regardless of any                  clear to the reviewer.