Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

psychiatrie texts together with their own introductions. These efforts enabled the modern reader to orient in place and time many ofthose who worked before him. Thb new volume b a much more ambitious effort, which introduces the reader to the writings of more than 300 personalities of the past whose work was related in some fashion to the evolution of psychiatry. It b a chronologically arranged anthology of hundreds ofshort excerpts with briefannotations. The authors drawn from are almost all English, with a few American writers and René Descartes and Feuchtersieben in Englbh translations. An anthology ofexcerpts by its very nature resembles an iceberg in that theparts ofthe books omitted, the submerged portion, are much larger than the exposed peaks. Thus the function ofthe editor ofsuch a volume b to acquaint the reader with what ofthe original contribution seems most pertinent and, with shorter works, to select the essential parts. The editors have succeeded in doing thb in Three Hundred Years ofPsychiatry. Accepting these limitations and grateful to learn even a little about so much, we must be impressed by the vastness ofthe material covered. It b divided by centuries only, beginning with the sixteenth; and it b interesting to note the enormous increase ofliterature on psychiatric subjects as the time progresses. The editors wisely chose to terminate thb record with the year i860, for not only was it then that the foundation ofmodern psychiatry was laid, but the quantity ofpublbhed material began to expand to proportions which even their unusual industry might be unable to cope with. Thb b not a book that one will choose to read through, but it will be most useful as a source ofhistorical reference for the psychiatrist. Ilza Vfith, Ph.D. University ofCalifornia San Francisco Medical Center The Domesday Dictionary. By Donald M. Kaplan and Armand Schwerner. Edited by LouisbJ. Kaplan. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963. Pp. 316. $5.95. Ifthere b any chance that life will survive the holocaust that b surely coming, then a way should be found to preserve thb codex in order to help the future world figure out what happened to ours. For thb grim glossary contains the key words that have been coined to describe our present condition, a new language which we mouth but do not actually comprehend. Howdoes one read such a book? It b anever-to-be-forgotten experience. A dictionary without a preface or introduction might logically be read from A to Z. Try it. Start from the first entry, "ABC (Atomic-Biological-Chemical) Warfare." It seems appropriate for thb to begin with a quotation from Ilg and Ames on toilet training—although I am not sure that the authors know that one ofthe side-effects ofnerve gas, which has not been overlooked by the military, b complete loss ofsphincter control. Maybe you should turn from here directly to "Zero-Zero," the last entry, which I will tell you in advance contains a solution to thb mass-murder mystery—a definitive planfor atomic disarmament based upon an absolute atomic energy moratorium. But the authors explain why the consequent restriction ofdevelopment of nuclear power for peacetime 373 purposes makes Zero-Zero unacceptable. The Soviet Unionconsiders it aplot by capitalist monopolists to impede industrial development of socialist states, while in the United States it b considered an affront to the nation's industrial philosophy: a technology which exists must be used. "Beach Energy: A unit of fission energy; one Beach, two Beach; after the motion picture On The Beach, concerned with apocalyptic nuclear adventurbm." Each unit of approximately 3,000,000,000,000 tons should produce sufficient planetary fallout to kill halfthe Earth's population by radiation. The authors suggest other terms that might be appropriate for lower orders of magnitude within the Beach gestalt, such as a "Boardwalk " or a "Bathhouse." These latter are more in keeping with the concept ofthe limited war strategy ofHerman Kahn and the RAND Corporation, the taxpayers' consultants on "Ktenology" (the science of killing). A "Kahn Energy" b only one three-hundreths as great as a Beach, sufficient for the radioattive liquidation ofonly one major country. On the other hand, Kahn has calculated that 60 millioncasualties are too high...