Micro-Organisms and Man
APART from the immense technical literature that the study of bacteriology has produced, there have been popular works on the subject; and, indeed, it is a subject packed with romance. Whether or not it is true, as some hold, that the decline and fall of Greece was due to the organism responsible for malaria, human destinies have been affected by pathogenic micro- organisms, protozoa, bacteria, and viruses, in almost every field of enterprise. More than any engineering obstacle they barred the way to the cutting of the Panama Canal, to the development of prosperity and civilisation in large tracts of Africa and the Far East, and far more than any weapon of war they have taken the toll of armies and dictated the result of campaigns. The stop' how one by one, disease after disease, has been proved to be-due to some specific micro-organism, of how in some of these it has become possible to confer immunity, and of how in °then research has discovered drugs that can kill or stultify the re. sponsible agent, must always be fascinating. Mr. F. Sherwood Taylor has told this story briefly, clearly and in such a fashi that no previous technical knowledge is necessary for its enjoy. ment. As a pocket volume, both for the would-be mediea,', student and for anybody interested in the human economy its antagonists, it can be warmly recommended. H. H. BASHFORD.
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