Thomas Hunt has presented a useful, sensible selection from the prodigious writings of a man who could be termed a father of modern gastroenterology. Sir Arthur Hurst possessed a scope of interest difficult to compass in one volume. For example, Hunt's collection lacks a selection from Hurst's Croonian Lectures on the psychology of the special senses and their functional disorders, published in 1920 (Frowde, London). The magnitude of his contribution to gastroenterology tends to obscure the fact that his book, Medical Diseases of the War, first published in 1916, went through four editions, the last appearing in 1944, the year of his death. Gastroenterology was, however, the domain of Hurst's most enduring interest and influence, and of this Hunt gives a very balanced selection.
The book begins with a chapter selected from Hurst's pioneer radiographic studies of the physiology and pathology of the gastrointestinal tract, in particular the stomach. The