Heredity and the Nature of Man

Between the preparation and the publication of this third edition of his great textbook Lawson Wilkins died, and this edition carries an admirable obituary tribute by John Money. Lawson Wilkins may be said to have created the clinical science of paediatric endocrinology, and it was largely due to him that this subject travelled further and faster than any other branch of paediatrics. Its only rivals in quality of research in the same period were in the fields of neonatal studies and genetic defects. Lawson Wilkins not only created a discipline but he also founded a school, and now his associates and fellows -his " boys " as he called them-head departments of paediatrlc endocrinology all over the United States. The textbook is a no less enduring memorial. The first edition was published in 1950 and the second in 1957. In the third edition he acknowledges the help given to him by a number of his colleagues, including the associate editors, Blizzard and Migeon. The book has been rewritten and is longer than the second edition by nearly a hundred pages. It is still a predominantly clinical text, but the scientific information is fuller and more detailed than it was. Wilkins's especial interests were the adrenal cortex, the thyroid, and sexual abnormalities, and the chapters dealing with these subjects are still the best in the book. This new edition is inevitable reading for paediatricians and endocrinologists and for those who hope to join their ranks. It is unrivalled among endocrinological textbooks in authority, learning, and distilled experience. No doubt Blizzard and Migeon are busily preparing the fourth edition for 1970. So classic and distinguished a text should not be allowed to perish. Changes will be inevitable. Some of the non-endocrine chapters, useful as they may have been in differential diagnosis, will disappear. Some of the pictorial records will be discarded, regretfully, for their subjects are as familiar to us as the " faces which we have loved long since and lost awhile." The present plan of the book results in some overlapping, and this will be eliminated. The index requires a long and critical look. These, and similar, amendments will allow space for the inclusion of those advances in endocrinology which are rapidly occurring. Such changes will add further distinction to Lawson Wilkins's noble memorial. DOUGLAS HUBBLE.