Jacoby, George W. Physician, Pastor, and Patient. New York:  Paul B. Hoeber. $3.50.

The author of this volume has previously attempted to present the relations existing between Medicine and Pedagogy, Medicine and Jurisprudence. He now attempts to arouse interest on the part of the clergyman in Medicine and of the physician in Religion in the hopes of securing practical cooperation where the fields overlap.

He first defines medicine and indicates its relationship to the other sciences. He points out the limitations of the physician in dealing with human problems—the physician is not guardian, teacher, nor pastor. He next discusses the scope of religion and the relation of the major religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) to health practices. The third and largest section of the book takes up in order the various medicoreligious problems which confront us today: contraception, abortion, sterilization, divorce, sex and sex education, the criminal, the mentally ill, suicide, euthanasia, vivisection, professional secrecy, etc.

Since the author does not express his own religious convictions, each chapter consists of a brief statement of the problem under consideration, the medical facts as far as they are known, and finally the stand each of the churches (Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant) take in settling it. The reader is left to make his own choice as to solution in the light of the dogma of his own church or the dictates of his own code of ethics.

Dr. Jacoby concludes with a chapter of praise for the work of the various denominationally controlled mental hygiene clinics in which both clergymen and physicians work together. He feels very strongly that the cooperative effort of pastor and physician will achieve more than either alone. The volume is on the whole more of a reference manual of medical-pastoral problems for the clergyman than for the medical man.