BookReviews
GODWIN JESCHAL, Politik und Wissenschaft deutscher Aerzte im Ersten Weltkrieg, (Wutrzburger Medizinhistorische Forschungen, Band 13), Pattensen/ Han., HorstWellm Verlag, 1980, 8vo, pp. 169, DM. 26.00 (paperback).
This doctoral thesis from Berlintellsthe old and unedifying story of how the leaders of the German medical profession followed their imperialist government in sup-porting the 1914-18 war inside and outside the Reich. The author illustrates this additionally by examiningtheirattitude towards gas-warfare,
nutrition,
and abortion. For him this isthe necessary consequenceofthe economic"bourgeois" condition of theGermandoctors. Theauthor omitstwobasic facts:(1)this attitudewas practised just thesameby theleaders of the French and English profession;(2)thisimperialistic attitude is practised today, even in peace-time, in those countries, where the bourgeoisiehasbeen exterminated. This makesitobviousthat in spiteof the author's industry incollecting material, this is no scientific monograph but a political pam-phlet,afactwhichisanyhowobvious from the blind reliance on material fromthe so-called "German Democratic Republic", and theterminology and thegeneral philos-ophy of the opus. You can call this science, ifyou want to, but as Friedrich Engels oncewrote, "Youcan classify aclothesbrush as amammal, but that doesn't makeit grow mammae". By the way, S. Grumbach, whom Jeschal quotes repeatedly, as a"Swiss",was noSwiss, butaFrench socialistdeputy.
Erwin H. Ackerknecht Medizinhistorisches InstitutderUniversit'at Zurich
P. H. SYDENHAM, Measuring instruments: tools of knowledge and control, London, Peter Peregrinus (in association with the Science Museum), 1979, 8vo, pp. xvii, 512,illus.,£19.00(overseas£22.00).
It ishard to be generousabout this book, which begins with twochapters of total gobbledegook. In his endeavourto constructwhat hecallsaphilosophy of measure-ment the author does nothing so muchasadd verses toJabberwocky. On page 2 we learn "measuring instruments ... [are] ... tools for converting information into knowledge". By page 18 wehavealsodiscovered "knowledge ... [is] ... information that has been givena certain meaning by the observer", and on page 20 we aretold "the meaning ofmeasurements wouldseem toremain a property subjectively tiedto the mind of the observer". All of which leads to the conclusion "that measuring in-struments are information machines that convey and code with meaning, knowledge sought" (p. 20). Reference back to page 2 should make this clear, "thereis a great differenceofopiniononwhat knowledgeis". Anaphorism thatcanonly behelpfulby thetime we get to page 26"Science isthestudy of gaining knowledge and ordering it in its most general form so as to reduce the number ofindividual factsneeded to be known". By page 28 a Zen-like "knownbody ofknowledge" has crept into the text. After thisthesolidity of page 38 issomething ofarelief: "The sum total ofknowledge istermed thebodyofknowledge".Thisbodyofknowledge growsthroughtechnology: "Iftheequipment and method is better than those that preceded it, it must reveal new knowledge" and so, the author notes conclusively, "It provides a journey into the unknown where all manner of hitherto unknownphenomenaexist"(p. 49).
After this gnomic beginning and the oracular "Man can only createwhat can be 102
available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300034268
