Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-10
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
THE STRUGGLE FOR HEALTH DR.
Richard Hoffman,. Horace Liver
1. G.. M.

THE STRUGGLE FOR HEALTH. DR.
Richard Hoffmann. Horace LIVER
right.
This. volume covers the substance and
general sequence OF the longest serial
ever written tnat Is, essentially and init
mRtely, your story and mine. It Is a
story Of all the you's and mes that have
| existed since man first stood straight or
his hind feet, forecasting thereby both
| the strength and the weakness of the
! whole man-tribe.
The current issues of this long serial
may be found on eyery newsstand
Physical Culture" How to Be Well. y
| and so on and so on. It's earlier APP
pearances, however, were less open
Rude gashes on the walls of dark, long
hidden caves. Characters craven on
stone and marble, buried for thousands
of years. Scrolled papyri entombed fol
centuries. Parchment lined by the pa
tent skill Of clustered medieval crafts
men. Later-much later-the wide
spread OF the long recital by the mar
velous invention Of printing. Whatever
Of incident or external may embellish
or burden, the recital, its inner content
the vision that projects it is ever the
same-man's struggle for health and
well-being.
A doctor tells the story, gathering
1t up from mans recorded beginnings,
co-ordinating its parts, Illuminating its
most vital points, emphasizing its sig
niflcant drives and drifts, dramatizing
its epic moments of discovery and prog
ress, humanizing the dreariness of its
pure scholarship by the cast of humor,
by striking comparisons and contrasts
that link the paSts and present in a
graphic picture or episode In a word,
this matter that might be as dry as
the dust in which much Of it has lain
buried, as cryptic as the technicalities
of science or as elusive as the dialec-
tics Of its earliest treatment, turns out,
instead, to be an adventure of intimate
exploration through the land of human
experience, on quest for health, the
prime essential Of human worth and
happiness.
Myth, magic, witchcraft, and other
strange cults all over the world, re-
ligion, the shifting moralities Of time
and place, art. philanthropy-indeed,
every phase of collective eXpedient and
purpose, goes back, and still back, to
the elemental urge of all life to con-
tinue itself, to perpetuate itself through
individual struggle, through forced
unions for strength. With this univer-
sal primitive urge goes fear. So many
things in nature menace that continue
alton of the personal man. Storm,
drought, heat, cold, the thunder bolt,
the lightning flash, a thousand unseen
things threaten extinction. Some awful
power lies behind it all. So, there
rise systems Of Precipitation with which
to turn aside the manifest anger Of
the mighty one. Gifts, sacrifices, rit-
ualS, ceremonies arise, along with GER
tain less spectacular measures for sup
porting and continuing the body Of
man. All of these are bent upon life,
upon living. Religions with their ac-
compartments of chant and posture
music and painting and sculpture in
embryo-derive from the same source
that gave rise to the art Of healing.
Necromancy, alchemy, medicine, sur
school of preventive treatment, bac-
teriology, municipal sanitation, per-
sonal hygiene-these, waiting upon dis
covery, upon the applications of sci
ence to bodily well-being, upon an
enlightened and receptive public-theSe
go back, in essence and purpose, to
that almost UNREASONABLE past when
man said, or thought, IF could get
around by the use Of my hind feet
alone, then could do a lot Of things
with these front feet of mine" So.
LlC ACRb yAlB cI10 oCCo VA
the unconquerable even then Sprouting
somewhere within him-and, by and
by, the thing was done. Standing
erect-more or less erect-he began
slowly to make shifts here and there
with those two amazing front feet
hands they were to be in the course
of time-began to fabricate rude things
tools, covering, other shelters, rough
comforts. A story almost inconceiv-
ably long-a story altogether impressive,
convincing, fascinating. Along its later
courses familiar names begin to appear
as contributory agents in the progress
sion toward health and safety-Wil-
liam Harvey, Virchow. Curie, Pasteur,
Roentgen, Steinach, these chosen at
random and quite out of order, to indi-
cate but a few of the names and
measures that stretch all the way from
Moses to Freud in a panorama of
achievement whose effect has been an
appreciate frightening of mans life,
through the pursuit of health. Au-
thority, information, immediate per-
sonal concern, and, surely, keen in
terest over a generally vital matter,
the reading public and an author of
surprising usefulness-an author COM
petent to enlighten and to charm at
the same time with the great epic that
he has gathered up concerning mans
struggle toward health.
THE FOUNDING OF WESTERN CIV
. ILIZATION. Prof. George c. Sellery
and Prof. A. c. Krey. Harper &
Bros.
Usefully for the world. scholarship
has within recent years taken a new
turn. Learning as an end is gradually
stepping away from its earlier exalted,
almost Sacrosanct, Enclosure. The idea
is becoming urgent that the usefulness
of scholarship should be open to every
body, since all are in need of enlighten-
ment about the journey along strange
road that has been laid down for the
wise man and the fool to travel together
toward a common end. The men of
Here is case in point. The title of
the book declares its purpose. Here is
a study Of history whose definite aim is
to gather from the past such bodies of
racial and institutional fact as have
contributed definitely to the civilizations
by which we ourselves are surrounded,
toward which we are contributory influ-
ences. Under superficial consideration
this history looks much like another
that covers the same field. But it is
not like these. To be sure, there Is the
commonly treated drift from the
Orient over into West. There is the
rise of one power and another on the
Continent Of Europe-Roman, Teuton,
Frankish. There is the dawn of feudal-
ism, the increasing strength of the
church in temporal affairs, the story
of the kings of chivalry. Centuries are
counted by their special contributions
to the purposes and spirit of each of
them. One of them gives industry, one
learning. another the arts. Towns rise
here. Crafts and trades identify and
stamp them. So the story runs on to
the day of the great discoveries, to the
opening up of new world, to the
founding of western civilization"
Upon its face, therefore, here is simply
another history of the world looking