Medicine and Culture

ensure that in each university any new appointments are grafted on to that existing department-history, history of science or medicine-which in that particular university offers the right intellectual environment, and that no attempt is made to impose a uniform pattern throughout the country. As Dr. Lloyd Stevenson says, 'if curiosity is the parent of "pure" science, love of the past or curiosity about it may be the parent of a kind of history which lacks ulterior motive'. The utility of medical history is surely no more relevant than the utility or otherwise of history in general. The various arguments for and against the utility of medical history often entered the discussions in this conference. One is left with the impression, as one was after reading the New York Academy of Medicine's Monograph on this subject in 1957, that every man is temperamentally an historian or an anti-historian by conviction and that the arguments are mere rationalizations. However medical history is gaining ground in this country and those who are active in promoting this development will enjoy reading this book. ARTHUR ROOK