The family in history

an intellectual giant; quite possibly he was not. It does not alter the fact that several very astute successors have been standing on his shoulders, including Pasteur who in 1881, at the height of his career, had no qualms at all about acknowledging his debt to Jenner. Paradoxically the present volume leaves a reader who had no illusions about Jenner-as nobody who has read for example Dixon's balanced account in Smallpox need have-with a desire to defend him. But at the somewhat surprising price of £10 for little more than 100 paper-bound pages with no illustrations (by way of comparison, Beveridge's lively and informative 124 pages on influenza including more than a dozen illustrations, which has appeared almost simultaneously, is available for a mere £2.95) the book is perhaps not likely to influence a wide readership.