Nursing for the Future

GENERAL ENDOCRINOLOGY. By C. Donnell Turner. W. B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia, 1948. xii + 604 pp. $6.75. This book is the first edition of a text-book on general endocrinology and is aimed to meet the needs of the beginning student in experimental endocrinology. Clearly, the book accomplishes this rather modest aim and more. It is not intended to be a completely adequate handbook for the advanced investigator nor for the physician interested and expert in metabolic or endocrinological disorders. Many present text-books on dinical endocrinology remain inadequate even for the physician, since they do not contain sufficient information regarding the experimental work on which certain biological principles are based. To appreciate adequately the r6le of the endocrine system in physiological processes requires an extensive fundamental knowledge of biochemistry and physiology. Many reviews and symposia on experimental endocrinology are so specialized in their content they frequently fail to be of much value to the beginning student or to the practicing physician. However, in his book Turner appears to have reached a middle ground. The book should be of greatest value to those starting their advanced work in biology; others (the practicing physician and even the established investigator) will find it a helpful book, especially when it is used for orientation in subjects outside of the main field of interest. However, the author has a tendency to avoid controversial issues and the book may suffer therefrom. Many fundamental problems are presented in a rather glib manner. For example: "Diabetes mellitus is a dinical entity resulting from a diminished secretion of insulin from the islands of Langerhans." Also, the thyroid is a gland "... . whose function is the elaboration, storage and discharge of a hormone called iodothyroglobulin." Such superficial generalizations are not characteristic, however, and in the treatment of most subjects the facts are presented in a direct and accurate fashion. Since experimental endocrinology impinges on all of biology and since dinical endocrinology must be considered to be a subdivision of internal medicine in its broadest sense, it is not easy to write a book which will satisfy everyone. -W. W. ENGSTROM