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MEDICAL SOCIETIES

BRITISH ASSOCIATION OF

RADIOLOGISTS

THE first annual general meeting and Congress ofthis association was held on July 12th and 13th,$inthe University buildings, Birmingham, and was

attended by a large and representative gathering ofradiologists.Dr. JAMES F. BRAILSFORD (Birmingham), in his

presidential address, traced the progress of radiologythrough its pre-war, war, and post-war phases, andpaid tribute to the early workers in radiology, manyof whom had sacrificed their lives to its development.He outlined the objects of the Association and

pointed out that in addition to the annual congressat which radiologists from all over the country mayinterchange views, the Association will provide a

medium of cooperation by which the advancement ofradiology may be promoted in its ethical, educationaland economic aspects. Dr. Brailsford announced thata Fellowship of the Association had been founded,outlined the rules governing admission to this

Fellowship, and said that 14 Founder Fellows hadbeen elected, all of whom had already been honouredwith high radiological office by their colleagues.After the presidential address, on July 12th, a visit

was paid to the new buildings at the BirminghamHospital Centre now in process of erection at Bourn-brook, where the plans of the new X ray departmentwere inspected.

In the afternoon the association inspected, at theUniversity buildings in Edmund-street, a representa-

tive exhibition of radiograms of bone and jointconditions which had been assembled by the presidentfrom his own collection and from those of many othermembers.

CLINICAL PAPERS

On July 13th Dr. R. E. ROBERTS (Liverpool)opened a discussion on Ante-natal Radiology anddescribed his method of cephalometry as a means ofestimating the maturity of the foetus.—Dr. L. A.RowDEN, of Leeds, gave an account of his- methodof pelvimetry. Dr. J. DUNCAN WHITE, Dr. C. L.McDoNOGH, and Dr. G. VILVANDRÈ took part in thediscussion which followed.

Dr. J. H. DOUGLAS WEBSTER introduced a discus-sion on Methods and results with pre- and post-operative radiation in Breast Cancer. He brieflyoutlined the development of the methods which hadbeen used in a number of centres ; and he quotedstatistics of his own and of others from which it

appeared that the percentage of five-year " cures "might be doubled after a suitable combined course ofradiation and operation, as compared with operationresults in similar groups of cases. Several recentlyintroduced methods had given better results than themore primitive technique.Dr. HARRISON ORTON, Dr. F. HERNAMAN-

JOHNSON, Dr. G. VILVANDRÈ, Dr. J. E. A. LYNHAM,Dr. RALSTON PATERSON, Dr. W. BARRINGTON PROWSE,and Dr. W. GRIFFITHS contributed to the discussionwhich followed.

Dr. S. GILBERT ScoTT read a paper on Spondylitisadolescens, its clinical and radiological features andthe results of X ray treatment.

REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS

A History of Science, Technology, and

Philosophy in the Sixteenth and SeventeenthCenturies

By A. WOLF, Professor and Senator, Universityof London; Head of the Department of Historyand Methods of Science. With the cooperationof Dr. F. DANNEMANN, Professor in the Universityof Bonn; and Mr. A. ARMITAGE, of UniversityCollege, London. London : George Allen andUnwin Ltd. 1935. Pp. 692. 25s.

No reviewer will attempt to deal in any detailedmanner with this book ; its range is too large, whileso many of the sections treat elaborately of tech-nicalities that it would require a team of experts toevaluate, just as it has taken the help of a team ofexperts to produce them. Prof. Wolf attempts togive a full protrait of the mind of the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries, and one has only to think fora moment of those who were the intellectual leadersof the period, of what they attempted and to whatthey led their successors, to realise that huge as thisvolume is it can be but a curtailment of facts inmany directions. For in those centuries the founda-tions of modern science and philosophy were laid.But we find in these pages summaries, and in somecases detailed accounts, of much which was mostimportant in that early work, and which, where itwas sound, proved to be largely the foundation onwhich the wisdom of to-day rests. Astronomy,

biology and physics, chemistry, economics andstatistics, geology and geography, are the obviousheadings of the sections, medicine having a chapterto itself, and properly following on the section devotedto anatomy and physiology. And the way in whichmedicine is dealt with is an example of the treatmentof the various subjects. With strict reference tothe period under consideration nothing is said of thefathers of the science and art of medicine, and theearliest workers in anatomy and biology referred toare Vesalius, Servetus, Fabricius, Malpighi, Leeuwen-hoek, and certain of their contemporaries. Thestory of Harvey’s discovery finds its place under theheading of anatomy, and is told in the barest out-line, but, as always, it is thrilling because of firstthe logical manner of approach, and, secondly, ofthe wonderful manner in which the inevitable gaps.were later closed in accordance with the originaltheory. The medical protagonists chosen for men-tion are, among others, Fracastoro, Sanctorius(inventor of the weighing chair), Glisson, Paracelsus,a pioneer in chemistry, the value of whose work

escapes general knowledge, Pare, Mayow, Gilbert,the author of de 1J{agnete, Van Helmont, John Locke,and Borelli, while the comment affixed to the list,abbreviated here, is that the majority of the famousdoctors enumerated were pioneers in other fields ofstudy than pathology. That is a suggestive reflec-tion to-day, when on all hands it is seen how depen-,dent for any live progress scientific medicine is upon.the research work of the biologist, the physicist, andthe philosopher.