DISCOVERERS FOR MEDICINE

The part played by chance- and the uninitiated in medical discovery, this is an interesting assemblage of materia medica, directed at a popular audience. The discovery of blood pressure by a Reverend Hales; the theory of respiration as it was first articulated by a Spanish lawyer; Lady Montagu's introduction of preventive smallpox vaccination in England; the Countess of Cinohon and quinine; Mendel and heredity; Sir William Withering and foxglove; scabies, eyeglasses, X-rays,- all are part of this particular narrative which has a certain coincidental, circumferential interest for followers of medical history.