Abstract
THERE is a textbook for the Kitchener School of Medicine at Khartoum, and presumably the animals with which it deals form the syllabus of that School, together with some consideration of embryology, heredity, evolution, ecology and metabolism. The morphology of the types is done admirably. The size, print and especially the illustrations are exceptionally good. There may be a sufficient reason in the psychology of students for making the work so morphological in Khartoum, but the tendency in Great Britain is for the teacher to lighten morphology with a consideration, most elementary of course, of function in relation to the environment in which the animal dwells. Here much emphasis is laid on parasites, blood flukes, tapeworms, Ascaris, ticks and ‘medical’ insects being included besides all the types usual in Great Britain. This may be wise, for the applied side anyhow will have to be considered later by the student in a tropical country, where he will be seeing the effects of animal parasitism. In any event, parasites are not good forms on which to teach observation, which surely is of the first importance to the commencing student. If all these additional types are to be considered, why not omit the dogfish altogether ? It has little to do with the Sudan and the course would be sensibly lightened without much loss.
An Introduction to Comparative Zoology:
a Text-Book for Medical and Science Students. By F. G. Sarel Whitfield and A. H. Wood. Pp. x + 354. (London: J. and A. Churchill, Ltd., 1935.) 15s.
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An Introduction to Comparative Zoology. Nature 136, 1010 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/1361010a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1361010a0