Abstract
THE author of this book is a barber, and he feels that barbers have been badly treated. They have been punished for being dirty and spreading infectious diseases. Stirred by a strong sense of injustice, he says that ‘barbers' rash’ is not due to germs, and that diseases in general are not due to micro-organisms but to heredity. He adds that medical men, who have testified against barbers, may themselves be responsible for conveying the infection of puerperal fever. He counters dogmatic statements with the lie direct. The relative importance of the different possible factors in the causation of such diseases is not in fact known with certainty. Scientific workers in general are more open-minded than the author supposes, but they are not likely to be convinced by rhetoric.
The Hair in Health and Disease:
a New Explanation of Diseases of the Hair, Scalp and Skin and of ” Barbers' Diseases” in Particular. By Edward Lawrence. Pp. xvi + 181. (London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., 1936.) 5s. net.
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The Hair in Health and Disease. Nature 139, 737 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139737c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139737c0