What Everyone Ought to Know

WVHAT EVERYONE OUGHT TO KNOW. By Oliver T. Osborne. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Ill. This is a book on health, disease and accident, and should enable the fifteen-minute-a-day reader to talk impressively about a variety of things without thoroughly understanding any of them. One who is reasonably familiar with the fields of biology may wonder if it is useful to present to laymen a variety of unqualified dicta such as this work presents. The intelligent reader, moreover, will be forgiven if he wonders wherein are germane to the subject, discursions upon transatlantic air voyagers, bathing beauty contestants, and alleged, but unsupported, inferences relating to the cost of research on coffee. The statement that increased national consumption of sugar bears a causative relation to the incidence of diabetes and, again, that iron in the blood changes the carbon dioxide to oxygen can not express the meaning intended. The adoption, by users of public telephones, of the custom recommended in regard to placing a clean handkerchief over the telephone mouthpiece before calling central is unlikely. These things detract from confidence in the main body of true and unassailable fact. The perusal of the book in its entirety leaves a reasonable doubt that the author has exercised conservative restraint over his antipathies, and strengthens a humanly antagonistic attitude toward a title which asserts that the contents are "What Everyone Ought to Know". J. W. M. BUNKER