Clinical Study and Treatment of Sick Children
- Type:
Book Reviews.
- Author:
John Thomson, M.D.
F.R.C.P.Ed. 3rd Edition. Pp. 877 xxxii., with 249 illustrations. Pub. Edinburgh^ Oliver and Boyd, 1921. Price, 32.s. 6d. net.
We have very great pleasure in welcoming a third edition of this book, which has been not ?nly re-written and brought up to date, but the scope of which has been considerably enlarged so that it now forms a complete and yaluable text book to the subject with which Jt deals. The general plan of the work reniains the same; after giving an account of the principles of examination, the author follows with a very interesting and useful description of the main facts of growth and development, and he then proceeds to deal Avith the disorders and diseases of infancy and ehildhood as they affect the various regions and systems of the body. Teeth, limbs, nose and throat, blood, alimentary, respiratory, Clrculatorv, nervous, urinary, etc., systems, are each dealt with in turn; there are special ehapters on such subjects as the different forms of paralysis, rheumatism, syphilis and tuberculosis. A special chapter is devoted to the chief functional nervous disorders, also to the very important subjects of breast and hand feeding, nursery hygiene, and thera- peutics; and the volume is concluded with a dumber of appendices on such questions as the Method of case-taking, the periods of incuba- tion and infectiveness of the infectious diseases, anaphylaxis, directions to the ^others of paralysed and mentally defective children, formulae and recipes, etc. It is lrnpossible to give any detailed account of the subject matter; it may, however, be said that each section is an up-to-date description of the matter with which it deals besides con- taining abundant references to special articles and recent work. In view of the fact that there are often very considerable differences between the organs of the child and those of the adult, and that if this be not borne in rnind serious errors may easily be made, we regard it as a particularly valuable feature of the book that the account of the various diseases should be preceded by a description of the normal anatomy and physiology at this period of life.
What chiefly strikes us about the book, however, and what is undoubtedly its most valuable feature, is its sound practical common sense and its wealth of clinical information. Dr. Thomson is well known as an experienced physician who has devoted his life to the careful and scientific study of children and this work is no mere compilation, it is the result of years of painstaking clinical investigation, and there is hardly a page which does not contain some personal observation or some bit of shrewd advice which cannot fail to be of value to the medical practitioner. When to this we add that the volume is very pleasantly written and profusely illustrated it will be seen that it is one which can be thoroughly recommended.
A. F. Tredgold. The Intelligence of School Children. By Lewis M. Terman. Harrap. 85. 6 i. net. The publication in 1919 of Professor Terman’s “The Measurement of Intelligence” made it possible for the rank and file of educationists in this country to use graded mental tests instead of their remaining a kind of bag o’ tricks at the command of a few psychologists. The “Stanford Revision” of the Binet Scale is now familiar to many and these will welcome this further book from the same author. If any sceptics remain, we would recommend them to read ‘ ‘The Intelli- gence of School Children,” for they could not but bow before this tremendous array of hard facts. The book might perhaps have appeared more inviting to the majority of folks had some, at least, of the diagrams and tables been relegated to an Appendix, and the main conclusions, comparatively few in number yet very important, would have stood out more prominently.
Based on extensive work done chiefly by Professor Terman’s students, the book is a plea for the use of Mental Age and Intelligence 70 STUDIES IN MENTAL INEFFICIENCY. Quotient in the classification of school children and their vocational guidance. It is shown beyond doubt that by the present more or less mechanical system of promotion, the true retardates are the “superior” children while the laggards are almost always found in classes higher than their degree of intelligence would warrant. This makes the work of the teachers more difficult than it need be, while entailing great economic loss as well as positive waste of effort. Of great interest to us are the chapters on “School Laggards,” “The Intelligence Quo- tient as a Basis for Prediction,” and “Tests and Vocational Guidance.” An unhappy state of affairs is revealed by the tables on pp. 121 and 122, which show how in the ordinary schools of a certain county in California, children definitely feeble-minded are attempting to do class work that is 2, 3, 4 and in some cases 5 years above the level for which their mental age would fit them. It is good to know how far we may rely on the Intelligence Quotient as a basis for pre- diction, though there is need for much fulle? investigation on this point. We learn that the chances are 1 to 5 that the Intelligence Quotient may be found to increase by as much as twelve points or decrease by as much as eight points. Hence we must not make a fetish of the Intelligence Quotient., and whenever possible we should re-test at suitable intervals.
For us, however, the book is of limited value since the data and conclusions refer to the condition of things . in IJ .S .A. It would be well if those in this country who have been using the Stanford Revision during the past years would pool their results so that we might judge of the reliability of the scale for British children, and arrive at norms of intelligence corresponding to the classes in our own school system.
E.L.S.R. Insanity and Mental Deficiency in Rela- tion to Legal Responsibility. By William G. H. Cook, LL.D. (Lond.). George Routledge & Sons, Ltd. 10,9. 6d. net.
Dr. Cook’s new book covers a wide field which is increasingly being explored by lawyers and students of the law, and we are sure the learned author’s comprehensive exposi- tion of his subject will be attentively studied by many who desire guidance or instruction in the highly technical matters to which the contents of the volume relate.
It is a little unfortunate perhaps, that Dr. Cook in his first chapter: “Definition and Classification” should have been constrained to state that ‘ ‘for the purposes of this treatise the words ‘insanity’ and ‘lunacy’ are inter- changeable terms and are used throughout to denote the same thing, i.e., unsoundness of mind” (see page 2). That such statement is incorrect will appear abundantly clear from a perusal of page 3, and various subsequent parts of the book where the above terms and also “mental deficiency” and “mental in- capacity” are used as though they all had the same legal meaning, which is not the case.
Apart from the confusion of thought occasionally resulting from this freedom in the use of medical terms when stating legal propositions we think Dr. Cook has very lucidly dealt with the main principles respect- ing the varied relationships between a person non compos mentis and the law. II.D.
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