Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog

second half of the book presents the information that the authors were able to gather with the assistance of two public health teams supported by the Greek Ministry of Health in relation to medical examinations, hygienic knowledge and practice, and interpretation of illness. This book is written in a simple, straightforward style which is equally readable by ethnologists, physicians, public health workers, and laymen. Major defects of the report are that the three villages studied were in no sense representatives of average Greek villages, since they were mostly populated either by Greek refugees from other countries or by nomadic populations who had been settled in villages. Also, the authors' conclusions about "infanticide as a means of birth control" and the belief that "unbaptized babies are creatures somewhat apart from the human family" are entirely incorrect. Infanticide and abortion are illegal in Greece as in all other European countries. Also, the authors have some misconceptions about Greek social structure. Among these are their view that physicians are relatively low in the social scale, that folk healing is as widespread as they indicate, and that the traditional spiritual role of the priest in a Greek village conflicts with that of the physician. Despite these criticisms the book is valuable, interesting, and important as a statement of certain public health problems seen in some areas of Greece.