New York

Abstract

To those whose business it is to classify the literature of "scientific medicine," something, by the way, quite different from the literature of "medical science," there is no fact more salient and arresting than the chaotic status of such literature. That every war of consequence since the invention of printing has been followed by an upthrust of literary activity is well-known, but never before in the history of the world has experimental medicine engendered such an astounding proliferation of recorded facts and opinions. The mental symbol is that of Stephen Leacock's young woman who got upon a horse and rode rapidly "in all directions." An example, near at hand, is the immense array of literature upon the active and passive relations of insulin. Billing's young chemist, who attempted to analyze a rat by "putting the entire animal into his crucible," would to-day experiment with the effect of the clear filtrate upon everything and of everything upon the filtrate. The terminology attaching to such literature is equally chaotic, suggesting the need of Occam's razor (entia non sunt multiplicanda) and justifying Fletcher's dictum: "The whole world is in a conspiracy against bibliographers. " Where experimentation is either haphazard or radiates from a substance or organ "in all directions," it is obvious that a certain percentage of the problems will be "illusory problems" (Scheinprobleme) and a certain proportion of the