The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1942-06-30
0 Literary
@
BY JOHN SELBY
AMBASSADORS IN WHITE,
by Charles Morrow Wilson
HOlt: $3.50.

Publishers and reviewers are
often caught using the word
epic to describe a book, or a
story, and usually they should
be ashamed of themselves. But
the publisher of Ambassadors
in White calls it the epic story
Of medicine in the American
tropics and that is precisely
what the book is.
This epic is another great
service to mankind which has
grown out of commerce and
war. Sick men cannot work, nor
can they fight Fortunately, as
Charles Morrow Wilson points
out in Ambassadors in White"
the race for trade need not blot
out humanitarian considerations.
and has not in many cases. Yet
the impulse behind most of the
extraordinary and successful
tIght against disease in the trop-
les has been the socalled prac-
teal activities of men.
The battle has covered a vari-
ETY. Of fronts, from malnutrition
to yellow fever, by way of
Snake-bite and malaria and
machete wounds. Mr.. Wilson has
provided good deal of drama.
too, by simple means. He has
off the false heroics and
left the story bare and stark II
IS probably half dozen times
more effective that way.
1t is the story Of the victory
over yellow fever that most of
Mr.. Wilson's readers will re-
member longcst. 1t b begins a
great many years ago in the
most abySmal ignorance, yet the
NcIIoWjack ob ! G m actually
was no nearer solution i'm 1878
than 1t was in 1875 - as late
as the first decade of this CEN
fury important physicians were
still ridlculing the correct an
SWer, and condcmning thou
sands to death by their stupid
ity.
Carlos Finlay, a Cuban physi-
cIan of Scottish ancestry, was
the man who first believed the
mosquito was responsible for
yellow fever, and he was an old
man before his profession decid-
ed he as sane. Walter Reed and
his associates at the turn of the
century were Finlay's inherit
orS - tn @ Spanish American
war was responsible for that.
And after the heroic proof fur
nIShed by Reed and his associ-
aleS, another great man, Gen.
william GOrg&s, translated their
findings into terms Of prevent
I'VE sanitation. There would have
been no Panama Canal without
this, to name only one result
This Is only part of a really
useful book.
'PRELUDE TO VICTORY" by
James B. Rcston (Knopf; S2).
A young man eft the Univer-
5lty of Illinois in 1882 CARRYING
a diploma and a nickname. His
luIl name was James B. Reston:
The nickname was, and is, Scot
~.
Not great while after the
aforementioned event S c otty
turned up in the New York of
ices of The Associated Press, and
presently he was doing a New
York column for the Feature
service. 1t was a very good
column, but not a very good
New York column. Scotty was
Interested in serious things, lit
erature among them. And litera-
ure Is no subject for a New York
column to be read by people
VINO really care what Katharine
hepburn eats for breakfast, and
such matters.
linen our young hero betook
about 1886, to London
md another job with The Asso-
lated Press. He transferred TO
he New York Times, withstood
'art of the London blitz and re-
urned in 1910 TO this country.
lie is now one Of the Times
Washington reporters. And the
uthor of a book called prelude
o Victory
All this is necessary to under
tand why it IS that a young man
lardly 30 feels he can blister this
ountry and its war effort. Scot
y Reston is daring, he is serious
S only Scot can be, he is hon
ST and he will not swallow
omething he thinks should be
aid.
His book is a diatribc against
ertain factors that others also
ave mentioned Against the
2pid illusion that wars never
ettIe anything, for example.
against our complacent belief
hat if we can only hang on
nile our money (and Father
mc) VIII rescue US. Against
ne belief that we can produce
urselvcS out of 1.-The hole in
hitch we find ourselves - we
ave been out-maneuvered and
Jt-thought, he believes.
Some people will think some
llngS in Prelude TO Victory
LL-hi hnllnr IL InEA ...-..L