Surgical Technique

GENERAL BIOLOGY. By Perry D. Strausbaugh and Bernal R. Weimer. New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc.,1952. 813 pp. $6.00. An attempt to write a college textbook for general biology poses the problem of striking the happy medium between boring the students who have had advanced courses in biology and those who have had little or no biology. The authors have met this problem adequately, though there are passages where they commit the fault of too obviously talking down to the student. This fault is most apparent in the first chapter where we find, for example, the following sentence: "Dogs, horses, birds, and flies are animals." However, once the authors settle down to presenting the actual subject matter, they do an excellent job of avoiding the twin pitfalls of over-simplification and of making the presentation too involved or too complex. The sections on respiration, mitosis, meiosis, and heredity are especially noteworthy, as are the diagrams and most of the photographs. The book also contains twenty excellent color plates which are, unfortunately, grouped in one section. I feel that this arrangement somewhat limits their usefulness as opposed to having them distributed throughout the text. It is odd that with the recent trend toward early sex education, in some cases starting in high school, there is to be found no discussion, or even mention of the mammalian sex act. The book contains two chapters which present a general view of and introduction to biology, seven chapters on metabolism, four on adjustment to environment, one each on reproduction in plants and animals, one on embryology, two on heredity, ten concerned with taxonomical presentation of plants and animals, three on life: its origin and evolution, and a combined index and glossary. Some serious faults are the lack of a bibliography, a distracting use of quotations without references, and infrequent footnotes. One of the most refreshing aspects of this textbook is the authors' attempt to teach the student to apply the scientific method and the information gleaned to everyday living. One way in which they have done this is to "debunk" some of the more extreme advertising claims made by the manufacturers of cigarettes and laxatives. This book has been written as a teaching aid, and, as such, it facilitates the work of both the student and the instructor. Though there is still room for improvement, this is a superior college textbook for general biology and an improvement over previous editions. J. M. Q.