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573 Reviews of Books The Natural Philosophy of Time G. J. WHITROW, M.A., D.PHIL., reader in applied mathematics, University of London, at Imperial College of Science and Technology. London and Edinburgh: Nelson & Sons. 1961. Pp. 324. 42s. THIS book is another sign ’of rapidly increasing interest B among scientists in the nature of time and its significance in every form of advancing knowledge. Biologists have already studied closely the rhythmic activities of plants and animals; and now we have a mathematician surveying the whole range of time and times, in an admirably comprehensive way which includes the latest developments of modem scientific theory. Though in a better posicion than most specialists to make a philosophical review, Dr. Whitrow does not make only a philo- sophical exposition of his subject. He wisely prefers to consider classical philosophical theories about time in the light of modern scientific knowledge. This must be one of the very few books, if not the only one, in which a very broad cross-section of the modes of thought of different scientific disciplines is made available to the general reader. It contains an astonishing display of wide reading and is a source book of the first quality. After a consideration of the attempts to eliminate time from science, the origin of time, and, rather inconclusively, the need for a scale of time, he passes to an interesting study of time and the human being, with many medical and physiological references. Perhaps the medical reader will find most profit and enjoyment here, for later chapters require a standard of mathematical knowledge well above the average for the pro- fession. But a struggle with the later chapters is still worth while for the mathematically inept, for they force the reader to realise what an important world of precise statement is almost unknown to him. If the medical reader criticises Dr. Whitrow for sometimes making a too superficial appraisal of the medical aspects of time, he must admit that the attempt is remarkably better than the physician or surgeon could make in the field of advanced mathematics and physics. The subject of time, or rather times, is exceedingly difficult. This difficulty may be the reason why time in the biological sciences, including medicine, has been so much neglected. Adverse criticism in the face of such a broad and scholarly production may seem ungenerous. But it may be fair to make one or two small points. What does Dr. Whitrow himself think about time ? He states at the end of his first chapter a hypothesis that there is a unique basic rhythm of the universe. But this grand concept fades out in only three other page references in the whole work. And when we come to the three pages of conclusion at the end of the last chapter, we find that one page is given to a summary of the reasons why Newtonian imagery is inadequate. In the two final sentences we read, " Nor is time a mysterious illusion of the intellect. It is an essential feature of the universe." In this quotation we see again the serious difficulty which the use of the word " time " makes whenever the word is not qualified so as to make it clear what form of time, personal or otherwise, is under consideration. The book does not settle the problem whether man, supposedly the measure of all things, is responsible, through his mental and nervous processes, for all modes of thought for which the symbol in language is the word " time "; or whether time exists whether man exists or not. It is not made clear to us that every thought which has been exchanged between human beings, in spoken or written words or gesture, must be a purely human product; and that the accurate behaviour of birds and plants is in bird and plant time, about which man can have ideas but which he cannot know as a personal experience. Unless we postulate an anthropomorphic God who keeps time going before we are born and after we are dead, all ideas and forms of time which man can discuss must be personal to the human race. Every idea in this book is man-made. Man is indeed the measure of all things for his fellows. We may not say more. The Origin of Medical Terms 2nd ed. HENRY ALAN SKINNER, M.B., F.R.C.S.(C.), professor of anatomy, University of Western Ontario. London: Baillière, Tindall, & Cox. 1961. Pp. 437. 100s. WRITTEN to help students and others to a better understanding of the complex language of modern medicine, this book lists alphabetically all the commonly used terms of chemical, anatomical, and clinical practice, with a detailed explanation of the origin and significance of each. On anatomical nomenclature and the basic sciences there is little to fault, but in clinical and historical matters the work is less satisfactory. The suggestions that Julius Caesar was delivered by hysterotomy, and that Percivall Pott sustained the fracture which bears his name, have often been disproved. Noguchi’s claim to have " discovered the parasite of yellow fever " (p. 293) was refuted even during his lifetime: nor have bacteriologists since been able to confirm his work on the " pure cultures of the spirochaae of syphilis ", described on the same page. An entry for Owen Thomas states that he qualified in Liverpool (he was trained with his brothers in Edinburgh, and in London). Treves never acknowledged that he performed an appendicectomy on King Edward VII, the operation described on p. 409: it is generally held that he decided only to drain an abscess. Gonorrhoea usually responds to a single injection of penicillin. The comment on p. 195, which follows a reference to irrigation methods and says that " recent developments in chemotherapy, such as the use of the ’ sulfa ’ group, indicate that this new method of treatment may be completely successful ", therefore reads rather strangely. Professor Skinner’s researches have elucidated the origin of many words. No-one, for example, has previously explained adequately how the barbiturate drugs were named. It has been said that they were so called because of the involuntary exclama- tion a chemist uttered on first tasting one of these intensely bitter urea derivatives. Professor Skinner now tells of a com- munication from the Bayer Laboratories, describing how they were christened after Barbara, a waitress in a Munich cafe, as a compliment for the part she played in the initial experiments upon them. The Pathology of Ionising Radiation SHIELDS WARREN, M.D., SC.D., LL.D., professor of pathology, Harvard Medical School. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications. 1961. Pp. 42. 24s. Tms short monograph, based on the Weller memorial lecture sponsored by the Michigan Pathological Society, is easy to read and goes smoothly on an uncritical tour of radiation biology as it applies to mammals and particularly man. Like all rapid sight-seeing, it is necessarily superficial, and the author is rather inclined to be dogmatic when it is difficult to disprove and vague when it is easy to verify. Several references are made to the linear energy transfer of radiations, but an important point omitted is that radiations with a high linear energy transfer are much more efficient in causing biological damage than those with a low energy. The radiosensitivities of cells are often mentioned, but the universal influence of oxygen tension on cell radiosensitivity is not; and the fundamental contribution of Puck concerning cell radio- sensitivity is overlooked. The book is too technical for the lay reader, and the unspecialised doctor will find it hard to judge its merits; but the radiobiologist might be profitably provoked by its dogmatism. Personality Structure and Human Interaction The Developing Synthesis of Psycho-dynamic Theorv. HARRY GUNTRIP, PH.D., psychotherapist, Leeds University department of psychiatry. (International Psycho-Analytical Library, no. 56. Edited by John D. Sutherland, M.B., PH.D.) London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis. 1961. Pp. 456. 45s. THE author’s theme is the process by which psychoanalysis, outgrowing its origins in a neurophysiological and psycho- biological philosophy of man (with the instinct concept as the
