Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

longevity makes him the beacon light in a brilliant galaxy of physicians and scientists who have added luster to the Radcliffe Infirmary while lighting up the whole field of medicine. William B. Bean, M.D. Department of Internal Medicine University of Iowa, Iowa City A Notable Career in Finding Out: Peyton Rous, 1879-1970. By James S. Hknderson, Phillip D. McMaster, John G. Kidd, and Charles Huggins. New York: Rockefeller University Press, 1971. Pp. 48. $5.00. This beautiful brochure would have pleased Peyton Rous. Its frontispiece shows his quizzical features in the laboratory that he loved and in which he worked for more than sixty years. Frederick Seitz, president of the Rockefeller University, introduces this charming booklet, indicating that it contains the reminiscences of four close friends of Peyton Rous who spoke in tribute to him at a gathering shortly after his death. James S. Henderson, of the University of Manitoba, offers "a view from the center of the world." This short comment has the sharp observation that Peyton Rous's laboratory was a playroom. The view from his laboratory truly came from the center of the world of virus research. The "sparkling versatility" of Peyton Rous is well described by Phillip D. McMaster, closely associated with him for many happy years. Some of the detailed references to Rous's brilliant cancer studies are described by John G. Kidd, in an essay entitled "Stay as Close to Nature as You Can." It is interesting to note that the beginning of die idea of virus-induced cancer (J. Exp. Med., 13:397, 1911) occurred so long before its significance was fully appreciated. It was a joy to all who knew him that Rous's long study of virus-induced tumors culminated in the Nobel Prize in 1966. Charles Huggins, who shared the Nobel Prize with him, contributed a survey of Peyton Rous's work, entitled "His Business Was Finding Out." This contains a number of quotations from his writings and letters which demonstrate what a master he was "of the graceful and difficult art of belles-lettres." All these charming tributes to the genius of Peyton Rous reflect upon die balance he so well maintained between his scientific endeavor and his humanism. Spontaneous, good willed, versatile, and hard working, the man was indeed a model of what joy there is in imaginative and consistent endeavor and in the ability to communicate happily. Chauncey D. Leake San Francisco Medical Center University of California, San Francisco Adventures in Medical Writing. Edited by Robert H. Moser and Erwin Di Cyan. Springfield, 111.: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher, 1970. Pp. 67. $6.00. Adventures in Medical Writing is a potpourri rather than a gallimaufry. It consists of six essays chosen by the editors because of their notion diat die audiors Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Spring 1972 j 479 might have a flair for writing. In addition to those of the two editors, Moser and Di Cyan, there are essays by Aring, Alvarez, Bean, and Crosby. Their flair for writing is demonstrated in various ways, characteristic of the style, personality, and idiosyncrasies of each contributor and becomes evident in a predictable but nonetheless cheerful way. The essays contain jokes, homilies, verse, little tales, exhortations , and scowls. They express more than a twinge of melancholy derived from viewing contemporary writing in medical journals and textbooks. Perhaps at some time in die future there will be a considered study of die factblindness which characterizes so much medical writing today. Few critics have ever studied what we all sense is a tightening of die brake bands on the drums of movement which keeps the inertia of laziness from being transformed into the momentum of improvement in writing. Not only has die credo of good writing been known for a long time, but the red rubrics of advice and counsel are written clearly in texts and in graffiti for those to use who will. The conversion of knowledge into practice and of practice into perfection have hardly a chance against the awesome power of Epstean's law. Alfred Jay Nock derived Epstean's law from die sage comment of his friend who told him widi great emphasis, "If self...