Ludwig Aschoff—Ein Gelehrtenleben in Briefen an die Familie

here than a short notice. The change in the meaning of Biology in the early nineteenth century (W. Baron) and that of Chemistry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (H. Schimank), the concept of the gland as a secretory machine in the Borelli-circle (L. Belloni), Steno's veiled and self-contradictory criticism of Harvey around the ovum-uterus expositus-metaphor (E. Lesky) and Nature as a historical process-the Naturalist as a 'historian' of Nature in the world of Novalis (H. Schipperges), are the subjects of a more general character. The history of medical history is touched upon in H. Buess's portrait of C. Brunner, surgeon and medical historian, and in W. Leibbrand's delightful reminiscences we have a sketch of the Berlin Medical School half a century ago. Special subjects are dealt with in the essays of L. Buchheim (Aegyptian otology), H. Herter (medical ethics and deontology-aretJ-in Thuky-dides), M. Schmid (the Hippocratic idea of body versus corpse), G. Keil (the manuscript tradition of Avicenna and a new fragment), 0. Spies (smallpox in the Arabic literature before and after Rhazes), L. Munster (German students and doctors at Ferrara), C. D. O'Malley (Falloppio on cranial nerves), E. Schmitz-Cliever (a broad-side of the early sixteenth century advertising a nostrum possibly containing mercury and of special interest with reference to Paracelsus), H. Goerke (on Linn6 and C. A. von Bergen), W. Katner (a satirical broadside against Hahnemann by J. F. W. C. Dietsch, after 1843) and G. Rath (on a Jenner-letter to Ballhorn). The work is well printed and illustrated. made medical history through the most brilliant chain of discoveries, observations and ideas in pathology since Virchow. What is less well known is that he also wrote medical history and thereby substantially enriched the subject. Already in his early years he contributed profound studies in Sanscrit Medicine and as an old man wrote one of the most penetrating historical accounts of the cell-theory in pathology. Right to the end, in spite of much suffering, his deep interest and active work in Medical History occupied a prominent place in his life. This is well shown in the letters to his family-the book under notice. Here he mentions as early as in 1901 his lectures in Medical History and this in a historic account of his first visit to London where he was engaged in research work at the Jenner Institute and the School of Tropical Medicine. Here he was happy …