The Fight Against Tuberculosis: An Autobiography

549 accuracy of statement is also commendable for so concentrated a treatment. The book is about 30 pages longer than the first edition. Two significant new sections have been added: General Principles of Chemical Carcino-genesis and Some Objections to the Virus Theory. The major additional pages treat new studies on the causes of cancer. Those who are primarily concerned with the metabolism and treatment of cancer may be disappointed that their interests are not represented. Even to those, however, the book should be of interest; well related and organized information on the causes of cancer must always be of value. A commendable book. Some years ago Dr. Pottenger wrote a fairly complete story of his life and gave each of his children a copy for Christmas. Friends who read it told him it should be preserved in a more permanent form, and this book is the result. He describes his boyhood on an Ohio farm, where an early interest in nature fostered by the family physician turned him to medicine. After an old-style medical education and a trip to sit at the feet of German and Austrian masters, he returned to Cincinnati to practise and teach. His wife's tuberculosis, however, took them to California, where her death in 1898 determined him to specialize in this disease. In 1902 he founded the Southern California Antituberculosis League, the first in the West, and in 1903 established one of the state's earliest sanatoriums. The rest of the book covers various aspects of his personal life and career, including the discovery of new diagnostic signs in diseases of the chest, later trips to Europe, and teaching activities. The course of Dr. Pottenger's fruitful life has the makings of an interesting story, but his style of writing, though clear, is without grace. The accounts of his trips to Europe consist largely of long lists of important people he met and places he saw, each with a brief comment or description, composed without that literary imagination and ability necessary to make a traveler's account more than a device for jogging the author's memory. The book is poorly organized, full of dogmatic assertions, and replete with dull details. There are errors of fact. The German Revolution of 1848, for example , was not "Socialist" but Liberal (p. 68). Tuberculosis was made report-able in New York City in 1897, not 1907 (pp. 118-119). More important is his strong …