THE ROAD TO MODERN SURGERY

The sub-title ""A Hundred Years of Medicine and Surgery"" more accurately describes this history of the advances of this century, for modern surgery was only made possible by the discoveries of anesthesia, antisepsis and later asepsis, and its further progress depended to a large extent on the affiliated developments in the field of general medicine. In translation from the German, this tabulates the ever-changing techniques used for various parts of the body (heart, brain, grafting, eye and ear, etc.,) but devotes the greater part of its text to the discoveries of the germ theory, viruses, vaccines, penicillin, the X-ray, as well as a general discussion of modernized pediatrics, obstetrics, dentistry, etc. Dr. Glaser, a Viennese internist, is explicit; instructive, but not overly interesting; his book certainly lacks the drama of the Thorwald books- Century of the Surgeon and Triumph of Surgery (Pantheon).