The basic premises of Dr. Todd, as stated in the introduction, are sound and stimulating, but his application of these concepts in later chapters is confused and at variance with modern medical knowledge. One is pleased with the author's introductory emphasis that no disease exists as an isolated entity in a single organ or structure; that when one system is affected all others are involved to a greater or lesser extent. The unity of the patient as a basis for therapy, rather than treatment of a disease, is sound clinical thinking. Likewise welcome are the author's insistence on recognition of multiple etiologic factors and his protest against oversimplification of etiologic analysis by continuation of the inadequate idea of specific and single causation.
So far so good. But the elaboration of these ideas as applied to the therapy of the various chronic disorders, such as diabetes mellitus, epilepsy, postencephalitic parkinsonism, arterial