The Story of Medicine. From Medicine Man to Modern Physician, by Victor Robinson, M.D., Professor of History of Medicine, Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia. Published by  Albert and Charles Boni, New York, 1931. Pp.  527, including Bibliographical Notes and Index.

A history of medicine written in a most charming narrative fashion that develops the subject in a most fascinating way, with emphasis upon the dramatic features of the subject, which can not help but be entertaining to the reader, be he a professional man or a layman. When this has been said it can only be added that it is difficult to review it unless one

desires critically to undertake an evaluation of the word pictures of the many different individuals treated of.

The author's final chapter, on Medicine in America, is especially interesting and gives one a splendid idea of the brave pioneer personalities that grappled with impossible and unsolvable problems under the primitive conditions of colonial times. He winds up an account of the contributions which America has made to medicine by a quotation, as follows: “It is in the power of man to cause all infectious diseases to disappear from the world,” and follows this by this quotation: “For several years, automobile deaths in New York City have exceeded the combined mortality of typhoid fever, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough, meningitis and bronchitis,” and adds this commentary: “To reduce the general mortality, while the automobile mortality is mounting, makes a ghastly jest of public health.”

White.