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for tasks of this kind, under magnifications up to x 200,that Barer and Saunders-Singer 2 have devised their newlow-power microdissector. This works on pantographprinciples ; but the family failing, an incurable backlash,has been overcome by spring-loading, and accurate

counter-weighting ensures that the instrument will

" stay put " when the operator takes his hands from thecontrols. In the present model the dissecting instrument

’ will follow every movement of the operating handle,but at a reduction of 4 : 1 ; so the average shaky hand willnot wobble the tip of the tool more than about 25 µ.

THE ADOLESCENT DELINQUENT BOY THE juvenile delinquent is much in the news, partly

because of the disquieting rise during the past ten yearsin the number of young persons found guilty of indictableoffences, and partly because new methods of handlingthose offenders arouse heated controversy. The publica-tion by the British Medical Association of a booklet 3on the subject is therefore timely ; it embodies the

report of a joint committee of the B.M.A. and the

Magistrates’ Association with three coopted members,under the chairmanship of Dr. Doris Odium, and isintended to complement a report on the unstable

delinquent girl 4 published in 1946.The new publication deals with boys between the ages

of 13 and 17 who are delinquents, truants, or beyondcontrol. It outlines various factors affecting adolescentdelinquents : their home circumstances and the characterof their parents, including the problems of broken homes,illegitimacy and adoption ; intelligence and education(the latter may suffer severely in the truant) ; employ-ment difficulties ; use of friends and leisure ; deficient

money sense ; lack of religious values ; level of physicalhealth ; and the effects of the cinema. The powers ofcourts in dealing with the juvenile offender are sum-marised, and the last section contains the committee’s’recommendations for dealing with the problems dis-cussed. Of these recommendations perhaps the mostnoteworthy are : early detection of ill-treatment or

neglect of the child, and his removal from harm as soonas possible under the provisions of the Children’s Act,1948 ; greater provision of educational facilities for the

educationally subnormal child (last March the Ministerof Education stated that in England and Wales there areknown to be 28,000 requiring such provision, but only15,000 can be dealt with) ; greater coöperation betweenthe leaders of youth organisations and parents, and theencouragement of boys to join clubs while still at school ;special placement in industry of more backward boys ;measures to educate future parents both by pre-maritaladvice and by social and psychiatric services to deal withmarital disharmony ; increasing the police force inorder to deter the potential delinquent ; special methodsfor dealing with the persistent absconder ; and earlyrecognition of the delinquent who is unlikely to respondto any form of treatment.

,

While undeniably the causes of delinquency are manyand various, it is regrettable that the report, thoughusefully summarising a wide range of opinions, givesan over-all impression of superficiality. It never reallyfaces up to the enigma it propounds in its openingparagraph : " a very great number of boys who havethe same characteristics or the same environment as

those described here ... do not become delinquents."This problem of " differential response " as Reckless 5

terms it, or " susceptibility " to use the phrase of CarrSaunders et al.,6 was comprehensively discussed by2. Barer, R., Saunders-Singer, A. E. J. sci. Instrum. 1951, 28, 65.3. The Adolescent Delinquent Boy. Published by the British

Medical Association, B.M.A. House, Tavistock Square, London,W.C.1. 1951. Pp. 32. 3d.

4. The Unstable Delinquent Girl. London 1946.5. Reckless, W. C. Etiology of Delinquent and Criminal Behaviour.

Social Science Research Council Bulletin, no. 50. New York, 1943.6. Saunders, A. M. C., Mannheim, H., Rhodes, E. C. Young

Offenders. Cambridge, 1943.

Bowlby,? who quotes the findings of Burt, Aichorn,Healy and Bronner, and Stott. Bowlby’s own work 11 9led him to conclude that two factors are especiallysignificant in the history of the persistent delinquent :(1) prolonged separation of the child from its mother ormother-substitute during the first five years of life ; and(2) the child being more or less unwanted by parentswhose main attitude towards it is hostile, critical, andpunitive. ’

That the attitude of society towards the delinquentand his often irresponsible parents is also mainly hostile,critical, and punitive remains a large ingredient in thischronic social problem. Dissemination of information,as in the present report, is likely to help by arousingpublic interest and sympathy for the delinquent ; but,apart from deeper understanding of the underlyingreasons for his having " fallen among thieves," we areapt, like the Priest and the Levite, to view his predica-ment impersonally from the other side of the road.

A DANISH ANATOMISTTHE eponyms which haunted our anatomy years

linger on when nothing remains of that prodigious featof memory but astonishment that we ever achieved it.Yet though the mature practitioner may brightenmomentarily at the words " Stensen’s duct " he is aptto look blank again if asked who Stensen was. In theintroduction to a new Danish edition of A Dissertationon the Anatomy of the Brain,lO Prof. Edv. Gotfredsendescribes Nicolaus Steno, or Niels Steensen, as one of theoutstanding scholars of the 17th century, equally wellknown as anatomist, geologist, and Catholic theologian.He was born at Copenhagen in 1638 ; and ThomasBartholin, another famous Danish anatomist, discovererof the lymphatic vessels, was among his teachers.Steensen’s contemporaries held a number of beliefs basedon opinion rather than investigation. Thus ThomasWharton, who, in 1656, gave his name to another salivaryduct, held that tears originated in the brain, and that milkcame from the chyle, not the blood. Steensen was thefirst to assert that all glandular secretions, includingmilk, are derived from the blood. He discovered not onlythe parotid duct which bears his name, but the minuteducts of the lacrimal gland ; moreover he described thelacrimal apparatus fully, and recognised that tears aresimply a liquid for the irrigation of the eye. He alsodemonstrated the existence of the buccal glands and ofthe cerumen-secreting glands of the ear. His work on thestructure of muscle ran directly counter to opinion atthe time. Galen’s view that the tendons were principallyresponsible for movement held the field, and the fleshypart of the muscle was conceived as mere packingmaterial, through which ran contractile fibrils from thetendons. Steensen demonstrated that muscle tissue wasmade up of contractile fibrils, and that the tendons weremerely anchoring cords ; and he also showed-nearly ahundred vears before von Haller-that muscle contractsas a result of a direct stimulus. He described the musclesof the tongue and the oesophagus, and the levatorescostarum ; but most remarkable of all, at a time wheneven Harvey regarded the heart as the altar of the bodywhere the blood was made liquid anew and impregnatedwith vital spirits, Steensen was able to state, as a resultof his careful examination, that the heart was made ofnothing else but muscle. He observed the ovarianfollicles before de Graaf. published his account of them,and the lymphatic plaques in the small intestine in thesame year as Peyer ; and he published the first account of7. Why Delinquency ? The Case for Operational Research. London,

1949.8. Bowlby, J. Influence of Early Environment in Development of

Neurosis and Neurotic Character. Int. J. Psycho-Analysis,1940, 21, 154.

9. Bowlby, J. Forty-four Juvenile Thieves, Their Characters andHome Life. London, 1946.

10. Discours de Monsieur Stenon sur L’Anatomie du Cerveau.Copenhagen : Nyt Nordisk Forlag, Arnold Busck. 1950. Pp. 50.