Abstract
THE memoir before us is an interestingly written account of a man whom all physicians respect. Stokes was a master of medicine, and the inclusion of his biography in this series shows the wisdom of the editor. The name and work of Stokes are perhaps not as well-known to the modern student of medicine as they ought to be; this is probably due to the fact that not sufficient time has passed for us to appreciate his work, or rather for us to estimate its great value. He worked and taught at the time when exact methods of physical diagnosis were beginning to be applied by the clinician. Pathological chemistry and bacteriology were practically non-existent, and clinical thermometry was in its infancy. The work of Laennec on the stethoscope had attracted the attention of medical Europe, and opened up the enormous field of the correlation between physical signs and symptoms. It is in this particular field that the work of Stokes was done, and his treatise on the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the chest still remains a classic. With the exception of Laennec's work, which it considerably amplified, this book must be regarded as one of the most noteworthy upon this subject which had until then been written.
William Stokes, his Life and Work
(1804–1878). By Sir William StokesMasters of Medicine. Pp. 256; plate i. (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1898.)
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T., F. [Book Reviews]. Nature 58, 245 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/058245a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/058245a0