Nutritional Deficiency in Nervous and Mental Diseases

It could be argued that this text is misnamed were one to evaluate its content page by page in terms of factual material, for though the story is, indeed, that of the mastery of many of the epidemic diseases, its main thesis is much more than that,-it is really the conquest of false philosophies. Recounted are innumerable instances revealing how susceptible have been impregnable positions and beliefs once a free mind-meaning a mind that can doubt as well as assert-has been brought to bear; a result, almost a by-product, has been the conquest of disease. This monograph is not one of the many inconsequential popular stories of the wonders of medicine; it is rather a serious, scholarly presentation of those basic ideologies that have governed men's thought, and thereby controlled men's practice, in the field of disease control. By direct quotations the author has given the reader much more than the "second-guess" summary of the modern analyst; he has, through affording contemporary record, indicated how great the effort must have been to discard the universally accepted doctrine of the day. But such rejections repeatedly effected have marked the transitions from demonic theory to acceptance of the crystalline virus, "from Fracastorius to Chapin," and all that this implies in thought and in habits of thought. How strong the beliefs and how firm the faiths that have been overthrown! Surely, we must possess humility as we view some of our current theories. Happily, this treatise has a 'whither are we going' as well as a 'whence have we come' flavor. This is an excellent book, written with great care. -GEO. H. SMITH.