The Control of hunger in health and disease
176 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. :Author: Anton Julius Carlson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1916. Pp. viii+319. Illus. This volume presents “a summary of the work on the stomach, with special reference to hunger and appetite, carried out in the Hull Physiological Laboratory of the University of Chicago during the last four years,” in the light of biological and clinical literature. “The elimination of many biological correctives by the artificialities of modern civilization calls for rational guidance of all phases of human behavior, including the desire for food,” observes Mr. Carlson. “When hunger becomes pathologically exaggerated the physician of today knows no remedy; when it fails in disease, he dispenses the ‘bitter herb’ of tradition? and hopes for the best… . There is yet much work to be done on the problem of hunger control, work worth doing, co-operative work of the clinic and biological laboratory.”
Mr. Carlson’s investigation represents a very substantial attack upon the problem. During the last four years he “has been fortunate in having in his service a ‘second Alexis St. Martin,’ a man with compete closure of the esophagus and a permanent gastric fistula of twenty years’ standing. The gastric fistula is large enough to permit direct inspection of the interior of the stomach, and the introduction of balloons, rubber tubes, and small electric lights for various investigations.” Several dogs were also used for experimental purposes, and Mr. Carlson himself was the subject of an elaborate series of observations. The work of other investigators in this field is very thoroughly reviewed and discussed. There is a bibliography of over thirteen pages, and a good index. The problem of hunger is a pressing and ever-recurring one. In these days of rising food prices it is an almost universal matter of thought. Mr. Carlson’s book will be of intense interest to everyone who is professionally concerned with physiology, as well as to many who approach it as laymen. A. T.
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