Abstract
A NUMBER of eminent men of science have contri buted to the admirable series to which this little book belongs, and success has attended their efforts varying with their ability to cast aside professional restraints and speak their adventurous and un guarded minds. If the unsophisticated reader is willing to add Dr. Fraser-Harris's name to the list, it will be for reasons which are unfortunately con cealed from the specialist. No subject could offer a greater opportunity for daring and ingenious speculation founded in scientific fact; but Dr. Fraser-Harris prefers to follow (rather lamely) the story of the journals. On p. 11 expectation is aroused by the statement that “comparatively few people could tell us exactly what it is that makes us sleepy and finally permits us to go to sleep.” Gall, Mosso, Pupin, Claparede, Ramon y Cajal, Duval, Howell, Coriat, and Pavlov did not claim to do more than suggest tentatively, and while the author gives some account of their work, it is for the most part shorn of those honest doubts and reservations which somehow constitute a real contribution to the subject. Finally, he takes refuge in that disastrous propensity of physiologists confronted with conflicting streams of evidence, the ‘omnibus’ theory. Thus we have the absurdity: ‘types’ of sleep (p. 26). Particularly it is confusing to see Pavlov taken into the omnibus. First among physiologists he seems to have broken with the earlier inactivity theories completely. There is still the problem of sleep.
Morpheus: or the Future of Sleep.
By Prof. D. F. Fraser-Harris. (To-day and To-morrow Series.) Pp. 94. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd.; New York: E. P. Button and Co., 1928.) 2s. 6d. net.
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Our Bookshelf. Nature 123, 560 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/123560a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/123560a0