Anthology of Orthopaedics

in the setting of history the author has divided his book into chapters with a historical basis. Thus the first chapter is on Greek and Roman life and medicine and deals with insight into the personalities, so far as they are acertainable, and the ways of thought of the 'pace-setters' of early medicine. He quotes the Homeric poems to show the common medical beliefs of the time which are expressed with vigour and clarity. Disease was inflicted by the gods: the Iliad for example describes in great detail a pestilence sent by Apollo to ravage the camps of the Achaeans. 'He came down from the peaks of Olympus and shot his arrows first at mules and dogs, then at humans ... the plague went on for nine days'. He then describes the high mortality, and ends 'It's cause was known: none but Apollo could have sent it'. Both Indian and Persian medicine are then described and are also found to be a combination of religious, magical and empirical rites and procedures. He quotes Sigerist as saying 'All archaic civilizations have a great deal in common and archaic medicine is very much the same everywhere'. This remains largely true also of European medicine in the Middle Ages where surgeons were needed by warring states and accidents in civil life, whilst for medical purposes there were herbalist physicians and priest physicians who practised magical and religious medicine as well as that learnt from the Graeco-Arabian manuscripts which were extant. The Renaissance and the resuscitation of science is well and interestingly dealt with, as are the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England (these all in one chapter), whilst Chapter 7 brings us on to the development of hygiene, infection, midwifery and surgery. The second half of the book elaborates the main themes of discoveries in chapters on bacteriology and the bacteriological control of food and water, and the transmission of disease by arthropods, worms, protozoa and others, as befits the author's distinguished career in the tropics. Then come chapters (perhaps less than adequate) on drugs, antibiotics, hormones, and anaesthetics; nutrition. Occupational medicine, the degenerative diseases, cancer, radiology and medical genetics are then all passed rapidly and skilfully under review. Next comes the evolution ofpsychological medicine and an account of the change in the attitude of the law of recent years which has resulted from the modem approach to mental illness. Lastly there …