This little volume, although slight, is of considerable value. It is written in a fresh and stimulating way and well sustains the high standard of the excellent series in which it is published. The author has the gift of simple lucidity. He sketches clearly the general principles on which the most modern conceptions of disease are based, showing first how much of disease is a reaction rather than a primary process. He goes on to define it not as a reaction to the disease process, but as an altered reaction to life occasioned by the presence of disease.

The author lays great stress on the importance of the mind and the close connection between it and the body in regard to disease. He even comments not unfavourably on psycho-analytic work. He comprehends how rapidly medicine is growing beyond its old confines and writes:—

Once upon a time, the priest was the doctor; to-morrow the doctor may well have become the priest, in a new sense of the word.'