Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast: 1903-1953

ROYAL VICTORIA HOSPITAL, BELFAST: 1903-1953. By Robert Marshall, M.D , F.R.C.P.(Lond.), F.R.C.P.I., D.P.H. (Pp. 139 + xv; plates 12. 7s. 6d.). Belfast: W. and G. Baird. 1953. GRADtTATES of the Belfast medical school the world over will welcome this fine and fitting tribute to the wvork of the Royal Victoria Hospital. The Board of Management have been fortunate in that the oneperson pre-eminently qualified to undertake the work has done so, and in doing so has given so generously and so tirelessly of his time and energy. Dr. Marshall has produced a record at once scholarly and of absorbing interest to both medical and lay readers. The record is replete with detail which is yet so cleverly woven into the narrative that this never becomes a catalogue of facts. Dr. Marshall has devised the novel plan of arranging the narrative in five-year periods. He gives in each of these first a brief record of the events in the wo-ld and in the city of Belfast, and he then describes changes wvithin the hospital. The readei is thus orientated in time and can appreciate the external conditions in which events affecting the hospital took place. The record at all times has that quality of lucidity and simplicity of style whichl sllowvs true mastery of the English tongue and wvhich we expect from the author. The printing, arrangement, and binding of the book will challenge comparison with that of any press in the wvorld, and Messrs. W. and G. Baird, Ltd., of Belfast, are to be congratulated on this. We are sure that those of our readers who have not already obtained this book will wish to possess it, and that they will treasure it as a wvorthy link with a great teaching hospital.