Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-29
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
I. C.. M.

"REMINISCENCES OF GEORGE MAR
TIN KOBER, M. D., Ii. D. Volume
I, Illustrated. Washington: Pub
lished under the auspices OF the
Kober Foundation of Georgetown
University.
The profession Of medicine provided
the taking-off point from which DR..
George M. Kober of Washington rounded
IN a wide range of distinguished and
useful activity in many fields allied
more or less directly with the basic one
of medicine and public health. Pro-
feSsional colleagues and others so placed
as to be in touch with the character and
diversity of general health service rem
dered by DR.. Kober have long urged
upon him the desirability OF q compre.
hensive, orderly, permanent record OF
his work This to constitute an avail
able source of first-hand information
for the use of readers and students
whose active interests run along one or
another of the lines of pursuit which
have so engroSSed and directed DR..
Kobers strenuous and achieving years.
The first volume of these recollections
is now in hand. Very properly, it serves
to set out program for the completed
work. To start with, there is time
table of DR.. Kobers life, beginning with
sential points in his subsequent career
up to the present. This biographical
outline indicates the scope OF the whole.
Such program indicated, the story be-
gins definitely with the authors early
life in Germany. Here is faithful
accounting of the medieval township
of Alsfeld. where DR.. Kober was born,
and painstaking backcaSt to include
both ancestry and immediate family.
hoc A1lth0r
likes to linger around the old home. He
makes pictures of it, Of the town itself
in Its ancient buildings and quaint ways
of tlife. He goes out into the country
for many touch of its natural his
tory-the face of the land, the growing
things, the familiar animals round
about And the people, these he follows
through the political and industrial
vicisSitudes on up to the revolution OF
l848 and the migrations to America
that so numerously followed that event.
It is by this route that he himself, then
just little lad, came this way. Such
careful painstaking as this single In
troductory section of the first volume
shows indicates the scrupulous care Of
the author to include every possible es-
sential in any faithful recording. The
blood Of this German, become Ameri-
can, counts thoroughness as part OF
conscience itself. The remaining seven
parts of Volume have to do with the
| growth of the boy to the stature OF
medical student and to full-hedged pro-
fessional. Then follow assignments to
the Army, and these serve to deliver
here q, very full account of medical Of
ficers in field and camp. A tribute to
the Army doctor of early days is given
distinguished in that field. Here, too, is
a brief account of the rise of the Army
| Signal Corps and the Weather Bureau,
both derived in fact from the enterprise
and acumen Of medical officer. From
this point the story goes far af1eld, far
as DR.. Kobers new duty in the West
when Indian warfare made the Army
surgeon as important to the white man
as his gun; The story closes with a
Indian campaigns. And that's the END
of the matter-so far.
| Yet Washington knows DR.. George
Kober better as philanthropist than as
Army man. It knows him as scholar,
professor, scientist as greatly absorbed
in every phase of public health, in
measures calculated to help the work.
ingman. There is, therefore, much to
follow in other volumes that will be OF
deep interest to both scholars, humani-
tarians and just plain people. And, in
1
and the medicine-man engaged therein
it Is obvious that this writer's f1rst in
terest is with the agencies of health and
not with those of death and destruction
There is much here bearing upon the
Indians cause against the white man
even against the Government itself
There Is keen interest In every meas
ure of sanitation and hygiene, in every
discovery calculated to prevent disease
as well as to cure 1t. So, 1t is plain to
see that the latter part of this personal
record is to go out into the highways OF
civic improvement, into the byways OF
neglected corners for their clearance
and publication.
A story from which every one will
garner something for himself out Of
Just one mans dedication to work that
builds toward finer and more healthful
existence, both individual and collective
existence.
THE ART OF LIFE. From the works
of Havelock Ellis. Selected by Mrs
S. Herbert. Houghton Miffln Co
A pocketbook from Havelock Ellis
for ready use. Love, art, morality, re-
ligion philosophy, constitute the cur
rency which it provides for the business
of getting along with life. A useful
book. Ellis is long writer, o prolific
word man. Busy people cannot sort out
from him that which they need and
would like. Mrs. Herbert has done this
for all of us. Let's hear Havelock ELLIS
talk, about-not love, not on Monday
morning, not about art nor religion
Let's listen to what he thinks on
morality - that wide topic on which
every one believes that he himself pos
sesses the right brand, indeed the only
real morality: 1T would be amazing, II
it were not tragic, to watch the spec
tacle of morality as it is played out on
the scene of modern life"-Ellis talking
now. I'm reality nothing is simpler
than the moral process of life. What
ever men see the majority of their fell
lows doing, that they call morality;
whatever they see done by the minority
they call immortality. This Is COM
monplace which has often been set
forth. The mechanism is beautifully
right" But it fails to work. Fails be-
cause the majority can never refrain
fr@m vituperating the small minority
part of it in advance, another part
tagging behind it. Yet 1t takes all OF
them to make a world, the majority 80
bitter against any minority, and this in
! turn equally bitter toward the mass
But nothing can destroy morality
Nor can anything destroy immortality
All that happens is that the minority
of one age becomes the majority of the
next" Moral maxims that
were wholesome in feudal days are
| deadly now" Temptation Is
an essential form of that conflict which
is of the essence of life. Without the
fire of perpetual temptation no human
spirit can ever be tempered and fortt-
fled. The zeal of the moral reformer
who would sweep away all temptation
would merely achieve the creation Of q
race of useless weaklings. Temptation
is the ferment of life" . ITO
ask that ones own higher self should
forgive ones own trespasses is the