A past-president of the Royal College of Physicians is one of the few people privileged to write exactly what he feels about medicine. Sir Robert Platt has formulated in this short monograph the thoughts, often controversial, from 40 years of medical practice. He writes about doctors and their patients, and the organization of medical care with particular reference to general practice; he gives his views on human experiments and on drugs; starting with the axiom that it is impossible to practice good medicine unless you derive satisfaction from the task, he emphasizes the importance of the family doctor.
Good general practice can be very good. Undergraduate training in general practice and suitable post-graduate work could combine the best features of American and British medicine and produce general practitioners equal to American internists in knowledge, who, nevertheless, remain family doctors.
Succinctly described are the difficulties of having the government of the