Study of Alcoholism

Dr. Clark-Kennedy has had an unusual career, for he is at the same time a'fellow of a Cambridge college, a physician, and the dean of a London medical school. It is, therefore, not surprising that, with his intimate experience of different aspects of the teaching and practice of medicine, he has written an unusual book. There is reason to believe that he wrote much of it during the war, when the hours of waiting provided leisure to think, and the threat of imminent destruction prompted thought on the meaning of existence and the role of the physician in the prevention of sickness and premature death. Nevertheless the spirit of the university inspires him rather than that of the medical school, the university in which men of different faculties and disciplines meet in a single community and have the opportunity to share and test each other's ideas. The author's 'aim is to provide a philosophical foundation on which a knowledge of medicine can be built as experience accumulates. In this first volume he considers body and mind, symptoms and signs, heredity and environment, reactions of the body and the mind, and the nature of disease. The author admits that this "may seem a strange and unusual prelude to the study of clinical medicine. But the art of medicine is concerned with human bodies made of matter, transforming one form of energy into another. They are partly dominated by mind and individual personality. Everyone does live a finite life in space and time in a mysterious universe. It is natural and logical to start by considering the nature of matter, energy, life and mind, and the relationships which exist between them in so far as matter, energy, life and mind are really comprehensible to the limited capacity of the mind of man. Clinical medicine cannot altogether avoid metaphysics and philosophy." The adult medical reader will enjoy this delightful book; there has been nothing quite like it since Trotter's writings. The author expresses himself clearly, and again and again excites our imagination by synthesizing information from widely different fields. Many will find it an excellent bedside book, an aid to knitting up the ravelled threads of the day. It is difficult to know how it will affect the beginner. We wonder whether its individualistic flavour will be altogether to the taste of the younger generation. It contains nothing about positive health, social medicine, or demography; in fact, as the spubtitle indicates, the author is concerned with the patient and his disease. Though the cash nexus between patient and doctor may be broken, sickness must always remain a problem of the individual as well as of the community. Dr. ClarkKennedy clearly presents the problem and the solutions which materialist and idealist have given to it. L. J. Wrrrs.