Autotrophic Micro-Organisms

ology. He also recognizes the role of chemotherapy, endocrinology, and improved instruments for observing the patient. His survey of current conditions is more detailed. Lord Horder is not only a physician interested in life and death, but also an adherent of such related causes as birth control and cremation. His interest in eugenics and biological control of illness has led him to try to get legal sanction for "... voluntary sterilization of carriers of hereditable disease....." He feels voluntary euthanasia is a matter for public rather than professional concern, though he expresses his own doubts as to its value. He advocates ". . . an extended pathology . . ." to include new points of view dealing with environmental and psychosomatic factors, in preference to establishing these as special branches of medicine. He criticizes the National Health Service in some detail, citing several familiar points: the institution of the program by immediate fiat, continuing budgetary deficits, and the neglect of the general practitioner in planning functioning units. On the other hand, Lord Horder concedes the need for centralized direction of coordinated health services, and argues ideally for a more gradual approach to government sponsorship. He feels that this might have been done through a progressive increase in subsidization of hospitals and medical schools and an expansion of prevailing health insurance. Though hardly to be defined as an historical summary, this little volume is a fluent and entertaining expression of one man's career.