American Medicine Mobilizes

treatise in 1931, and on a very considerable amount of experimental data obtained in the author's laboratory. Detailed protocols are presented, with complete and lengthy discussion of experimental procedures and results. A consideration of the physical, nervous, and chemical factors concerned with the formation of urine, viewed in the light of previous studies and the author's own work, leads to definite support for that mechanism of urine formation which involves glomerular ultrafiltration followed by tubular resorption. Mr. Rorty evidently believes with Carlyle that all history is biography. His book, that, for some reason not entirely clear, he chooses to call "Ameri-can Medicine Mobilizes," is full of personalities from Abell to Winternitz. He is sorry for John Kingsbury; thinks Olin West is an aging statesman; makes Morris Fishbein a villain in false whiskers; and nominates Isadore Falk for a halo. Most of the material has previously appeared in the weeklies published for little groups of serious thinkers, and the author has not been quite successful in connecting the disjointed chapters. It is all propaganda , written in characteristic journalese. The lengthy chapter on the promotion of a well-known brand of cigarettes is obviously dragged in for the sensation it might create, and Mr. Rorty was quite disappointed that his villain did not accept the twenty-five thousand dollar bribe; it all has little to do with the subject under discussion. Where there is no muck-raking, the book presents a fairly clear discussion of some of the problems of medical care, but everyone will not be impressed by the somewhat distorted conclusions. There are a few unfortunate errors in the statement of facts.