Mercury: A History of Quicksilver

Abstract

The author bases his book on postgraduate lectures on the development of certain ideas in microbiology.Thus, each chapter deals with one topic, rather than a chrono- logical sequence as is the usual way of presenting the history of a subject.The order of presentation is difficult to understand and seems to be quite arbitary.Some historical order should have been preserved here, so that the section on serology and immunology founded in the nineteenth century preceded those on chemotherapy, antibiotics, and bacterial genetics, which are products of the twentieth.There are chapters on virology and protozoology, with a note on mycology, but each is inadequate.A brief account of how microbiology has developed as a discipline and its influence on surgery (no mention of Lister in the index), public health and, industry would have been equally pertinent.Each chapter has a short list ofimportant papers or books representing primary and secondary sources, but they are not keyed to the text.Although it is ofinterest to have the main parts ofmicrobiology dealtwith separately, there is not sufficient cross-linking and the reader does not achieve an over-view of advancement.It would seem that each chapter represents a lecture, but with little reference in it to those preceding and those ensuing.Moreover there are a number of factual errors, especially in the material dealing with the early period (Hooke's microscope did not reach x 300 -x 500, p. 13) and distortions (Lister the elder is dismissed in three words, p. 15, and his name is not indexed, whereas he was of considerable importance in the history of microscopy).As a book for teacher-guided students this book may have a role, but those dealing with the history of microbiology already available seem to be quite adequate.