Like the rationalizing father who takes his son to the circus for the son's entertainment, the physicians-father might well purchase this book for the benefit of his progeny and then read it for his own edification and pleasure. It deals, in a most readable and accurate way, with some of the physicians in the Armed Services who have contributed significantly to the science and delivery of medical care. In many cases, their ideas were well in advance of their times, eg, the initial use of a blood bank and the recommendations for vehicular seat belts. The contributions of Rush, Beaumont, Reed, Sternberg, and aerospace medicine leaders (Grant, Lovelace, Stapp) are described in a very lucid style.
The chapters on John Shaw Billings, one of our authentic medical geniuses, and the generally uncredited innovator of the blood bank, Oswald Robertson, are particularly informative. The chapter on typhus fever in Naples during