BOOK REVIEWS 567

The discussion is largely on the psychiatric level, the reader who enjoys a philosophical flavor will be disappointed.

To readers of the Journal of Comparative Neurology the book can be recommended for reading in one’s leisure moments, on the plane or a t the seaside.

GERHARDT VON BONIN

NERVE IMPULSE. By TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECOND CONFERENCE, March 1-2, 1951. ED., DAVID NACHMANSOHN, New York City, Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation. 204 pp. Price $3.50.

The Transactions of the Second Conference of Nerve Impulse maintain the high standards of editorship set by its forerunner. Discussions centered around ionic problems, excitability, central excitation and inhibition, anesthetizing action and metabolism. The introductory reports were given respectively by Steinbach, Bishop, Brooks and Fuortes, Brink and Folch-Pi. Rarely is a speaker allowed to go on uninterrupted for more than two pages, and sometimes he is not even allowed to finish a sentence. Yet the thread is always picked up again, and there is much useful information and much stimulating thought between the covers of this volume. Numerous graphs and figures illustrate the text. To make this scattered infor- mation more readily available, one must wait for an index which, so it appears, is to be furnished with the last volume of this series.

Anyone who can find the leisure to read these scintillating dis- cussions will be highly rewarded.

GERHARDT VON BONIN

GROWTH AND CULTURE. By MARGARET MEAD AND FRANCES COORE MACGREGOR. New York City, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1951. 223pp., 58 plates. Price $7.50.

Most of the factual information of this book is embodied in the plates, each of which contains 5 or more photographs of Balinese children as they behave in ordinary daily life. The textual matter consists of about 60 pages of introduction, 6 pages of conclusions, and a number of appendixes on the steps involved in this research