The Health of Seamen, Selections from the Works of Dr. James Lind, Sir Gilbert Blane and Dr. Thomas Trotter

in his observations of pathology as in any other aspect of the anatomy of human or animal organs. It is natural that those producing this book should be enthusiastic about the great achievements of Leonardo da Vinci. This has been expressed by presenting him in the guise of a modern anatomist and physiologist. Inclusion of a section on endocrinology however overstresses the point. Of endocrinology Leonardo can of course have had no inkling, and it serves no useful purpose to Leonardo's thought or to history to serve up his observations or his Galenic humoral interpretations of phenomena, as endocrinological. Like William Harvey, Leonardo was in many ways both ancient and modern in his outlook. As an observer and experimenter he was modern, but he followed the ancients in being a daring generalizer. Both his anatomy and his physiology were based on a whole-hearted application of the mechanistic principle to human and animal organs which he persistently called 'instruments'. Students of Leonardo, particularly those with a medical background who are interested in his anatomical and physiological labours will be grateful for this work. It collates and arranges large portions of the jig-saw of his biological studies, and so renders them a great deal more accessible. But has it achieved the presentation of his anatomical and physiological ideas as he himself would have presented them? The answer must still be in the negative. This stage in Leonardine interpretation has yet to be reached. Leonardo did not subdivide and limit his studies of anatomy into systems as did Vesalius who was in this aspect so much the more 'modern' of the two. Leonardo, on the contrary was pursuing his mechanical principles deep into the field of animal physiology. Of this we can still have only a fragmentary appreciation when we limit our approach to his anatomical studies. The synthesis of his mechanics and his physiology and anatomy remains to be achieved in the future. For such an achievement this presentation of his studies of anatomy provides an important step. KENNETH D. KEELE