A doctor proposes a link between autism and tubercular infections.
Autism has proved to be one of the more haunting medical mysteries of recent times. As the diagnosis rate explodes, desperate parents and baffled doctors have searched in vain for an explanation. Broxmeyer, an internist and experienced medical researcher who’s studied both AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease, offers a new perspective. His book focuses on an underresearched link between autism and fetal exposure to tuberculosis bacteria. Broxmeyer contends that this isn’t exactly a new idea, but one that has been discussed in the psychiatric community for years. He offers a brief overview of the history of autism, and then traces key figures in the realms of psychology, tuberculosis research and pathology who have suggested a link between exposure to tuberculosis and childhood mental disorders. Broxmeyer concludes that a vast collection of useful research on the potential link between autism and tuberculosis has been overlooked by the medical community. This oversight, he contends, has slowed the progress of autism research at a time when it’s most needed. The hypothesis is a fascinating one, and Broxmeyer provides evidence from enough esteemed researchers to give credence to his ideas. But the book suffers when it’s unsure of its intended audience. Lay readers will want a more in-depth discussion of the history of autism and the medical community’s reaction to it; scholarly readers and autism researchers will want more hard data and conclusive arguments. In trying to accommodate both audiences, Broxmeyer divides his argument, diluting its effect on all readers. The brief chapters and loosely connected narrative only make his arguments harder to follow and the conclusion more abrupt.
Parents of autistic children will be interested, but the investigation continues elsewhere.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-1478101260
Page Count: 180
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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This early reader is an excellent introduction to the March on Washington in 1963 and the important role in the march played by Martin Luther King Jr. Ruffin gives the book a good, dramatic start: “August 28, 1963. It is a hot summer day in Washington, D.C. More than 250,00 people are pouring into the city.” They have come to protest the treatment of African-Americans here in the US. With stirring original artwork mixed with photographs of the events (and the segregationist policies in the South, such as separate drinking fountains and entrances to public buildings), Ruffin writes of how an end to slavery didn’t mark true equality and that these rights had to be fought for—through marches and sit-ins and words, particularly those of Dr. King, and particularly on that fateful day in Washington. Within a year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed: “It does not change everything. But it is a beginning.” Lots of visual cues will help new readers through the fairly simple text, but it is the power of the story that will keep them turning the pages. (Easy reader. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-448-42421-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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