Education and Health
- Author:
Gamlin, M.A., M.R.C.S.,
u.r.n., ^nier Assistant acnooi ivieaicai Officer, Liverpool. Jas. Nisbet. 12s. 6d.
Dr Gamlin has made a most ambitious attempt to provide a survey of many aspects of health, mental and physical for the benefit of teachers, parents and others concerned. His book is readable, well illustrated and attractively set out ; the matter is succinct and comprehensive, and the reader will gain a clear impression of many factors which influence health, and be led to understand the methods of controlling these factors. It will thus be a valuable book for many, though it would be better if it furnished a wider and better arranged bibliography of deeper reading to satisfy the appetite of the eager reader stimulated by this hors d’oeuvre. The book is, however, a little disappointing in its discussion of mental health. Dr Gamlin devotes his first four chapters to the workings of the mind, and his next three to maladjusted children, juvenile delinquency, and backwardness, so that the reader should be left in no doubt of the prime importance of the psychological angle?with which, of course, we cordially agree. But with all this space given to it, the subject is dealt with on too superficial a level ; and could have been written more profoundly without losing any of its appeal or clarity. The first chapter for instance, pointedly entitled homo sapiens deals with suggestion, superstition and the credulity of Mesmer, Joanna Southcote and others, but makes little attempt even to describe the factors underlying group and individual suggestibility, nor is further reading indicated.
Nevertheless, the book is one to be warmly recommended to anyone wishing to acquire a comprehensive introduction to the whole relation of education and health, and if it stimulates further reading, it will have served a most useful purpose. R.F.T.
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