Nucleic Acid Research

dedicated minority. To commence a series of disciplinary actions would aggravate the problem by making geriatrics even less attractive and driving the staff into closer defensive attitudes. What is required is an investigation into the causes of the inferior status of geriatrics so that these may be changed. Some of the special troubles include the desperate state of the buildings in which old people are nursed, the low level of medical and nurse staffing, the poor co-operation that so often exists between the hospitals and the welfare services, and the failure to separate mentally and physically ill old people and treat them in appropriate hospitals. These disorders, and others, are clearly described in the book, but the opportunity to present constructive reforms is not taken. Change will come about only if the public conscience is effectively aroused. Dr. M. D. Enoch, postgraduate clinical tutor at the University of Birmingham and consultant psychiatrist to the Shrewsbury Hospital Group, in the last chapter of the book, " Ready for the Scrap Heap," summarizes the situation: "The elderly, increasing in numbers year by year, are a group of people who do not fit into the materialistic plan of this present affluent society. From the politicians' point of view they must be seen as a group who do not constitute any form of pressure group. The greater number of them anyway would not be able to creep to the polling booths. A great number of them cannot even write an awkward letter of protest to the press or anybody else, and anyway they have their pride. It might be said that we have provided for them, but can we really expect them to choose the role of public beggars ? " It is surely impossible for anyone who reads this book not to feel some personal responsibility for the sufferings of the defenceless which it describes. E. WOODFORD-WILLIAMS.