Half a century of medical research, volume 2, The programme of the Medical Research Council (U.K.)

FRANCIS HITCHING, Earth magic, London, Cassell, 1976, 8vo, pp. xiv, 196, illus., £4.50. For centuries the stone circles, barrows, dolmens and hill "forts" that are found in Northern Europe and Britain have attracted continual attention and bitter controversy. They mostly date from the fifth to second centuries B.C. and many of them have been shown to have acted as calendars and prognosticators ofastronomical events. Mr. Hitching, an amateur archaeologist, presents an excellent survey of the theories that have been put forward to explain the paradox of a primitive people indulging in advanced technology that called for immense labour and infinite precision. A pattern seems to emerge from the location of megalithic sites, for straight lines can be drawn through several of them, and it is contended that the end result was a kind of powergrid emitting "stone force" detectable by dowsers and perhaps related to extraterrestrial contacts. The central question of the book is, therefore, "Is there an earth magic or hidden force known by our ancestors but not by us?" Although many will be sceptical of the theories here promulgated, there nevertheless remains a fascinating enigma. Perhaps a parallel survey of contemporary folk-lore and medicine with the idea of earth magic in mind would be illuminating, although the sources for this will be scanty, unreliable and mostly undateable.