UNE GRANDE PAGE DE L'HISTOIRE DE LA McnlCINE- LA DECOUVERTE DE LA TRANS- MISSION DU PALUDISME PAR LES MOUSTIQUES. ?By Sir Ronald Ross, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., F.R.S., etc., preface and translation by Dr. Charles Broquet. Paris: Norbert Malolne. 1929. Pp. 173, with 9

plates and 7 figures. Price, 20 Francs.

This is the French translation of the author's Nobel Prize lecture of 1902, and we would at once say that it is by far the clearest and most interesting of the three accounts of his discovery published by Sif Ronald. Why, at a time when the original English article [/?. A. M. C. Journal, April?June, 1905] was

being reprinted in translation to form the present work, the author troubled to produce the condensation of his Memoirs which we reviewed above, passes our

comprehension, for in the present work we have the whole research set forth with complete clarity, and can appreciate, as not even the Memoirs cause us to

do, the various steps. From the restrained, though graphic eloquence of the translator's preface to the invaluable reproductions of the plates 'from the now unobtainable

"

Report on the Culture of ProtcosouiO'i Labbe, in grey mosquitoes," and from figures in the articles in the British Medical Journal of 1897 and 1898, by Ross, and Manson, the whole work has not a dull or unnecessary line. We are spared the tirades against the Italians, and have the case against them set forth briefly but succinctly. Of works easily obtainable, it is indubitably the most valuable account in existence. There is little in the actual account that calls f?r

comment, but we had not hitherto appreciated properly that the hypotheses of King and of Manson, taken

conjointly, represented the actual truth, and that no

one had done so is, we agree, " assez curieux,

(p. 45). On page 64, we find the author himself pnr' suing, at Sigur Ghat, the epidemiological method f?r

which he has blamed the Italians in his recent Studies, on which the reviewer passed detailed criticism 1,1

dealing with that work. .

Of erroneous beliefs of the past there arc a few sti'1

quoted, noticeably on pages 45 and 98, in connection with the life histories of Piroplasma and Trypanosoma' which might have been indicated by later-dated f?ot' notes. The explanation of plate I does not indicate that figure 20 is that of " black spores," and not of 3

normal zygote of the sixth day. The date of t?e opening of the Calcutta Memorial Gate should "e

7th January, not 17th. But these are minor blemishes- Far more serious is the very poor binding of v\e book. It is in paper covers, and our copy is already nearly disintegrated into individual leaves as the resui of one through reading. We as Britishers may very well ifeel proud that ou

French neighbours have sufficiently valued Sir Ronald

April, 1929.] ANNUAL REPORTS. 235

Work to publish, in a Medical Series, a detailed account of the discovery in their own language. Should any French admirer of Sir Ronald's work, however, come to Calcutta and visit the Ross Memorial Gate, he would be astonished at the dirty condition into which 't has been allowed to pass. If, as a nation, we

value our great investigators below the architectural Magnificence which the French have risen to in the Pasteur Chapel, we can at least keep our less ambitious efforts in a reasonable state of preservation, the more so when their care devolves on members of the same great profession and service of which Sir Ronald is ?ne of the first-magnitude luminaries.

R. S. W.

ATotc.?Since this was written, the Gate has been leaned. We are sure that its present condition would

entirely satisfy our reviewer.?Ed., I. M. G.