SCIENCE AND
SOCIETY
Essays of a Clinincal Scientist Christopher C. Booth. The Memoir Club. British Medical Journal, London, 1987. 318 pp. £14.95. Distributed in the U.S. by Taylor & Francis. Philadelphia. $32.
As a student at Oxford in the early ‘70s, I shared a house with an odd assortment of characters, one of whom was researching a 10th century English king. One day he burst into the house in great excitement, proclaiming he had just found a manuscript that carried marginal annotations made by the king himself. At the time, I did not understand his reaction, but I have since become a scientist who dabbles in historical research (the bane of professional historians!) and now fully appreciate the attractions of the search and the exhilaration thrill of discovery.
Sir Christopher Booth...director of the Clinical Research Centre at Northwick Park, president of the British Medical Association and former professor...