This is an excellent book—excellent in conception, excellent in general layout, brief and clear where it could have been wordy and diffuse, and an excellent review of an exciting period in man's escape from the darkness of servitude to ignorance when he appeared to be at the mercy of an inexorable Fate. Death and Disease with Famine and War were his Masters, and he had little recourse against them.
Although it cannot be said that the conquest of his environment is complete, yet today the conquest of his passions looms larger, as the more pressing problem. The conditions have changed and this book spells out the patterns of change, documenting them with essential statistical facts and figures.
We note for example that Death takes fewer and fewer from tuberculosis and from the other deadlier communicable diseases. We have better means for their control, prevention, and treatment. Yet, as this book