NATURE. VOL. 222., MAY 3. 1969 497 too, in one way or another, have to be subsidized as food stomach were manifest. Chaplin considered the diseas'' producers. supervened on a peptic ulcer. Kemble regards it as a This book is good for us all-for anthropologists, primary growth. Sir Hudson Lowe tampered with the, economists and sociologists, not to speak of politicians and drafts of the doctors' reports and insisted that all reference administrators. Above all, it demonstrates tho awe­ to enlargement of the liver must be omitted. His real inspiring interconnectedness of modern institutions, and attitude towards Napoleon's ill health is giYen in Cor­ the consequent many sided intractability of the problems roquer's diary. He did not believe, almo'!t up to the last which arise. F. G. BAILEY possible moment, that Napoleon was really ill, and dis­ agreed with Arnott's subsequent reports that Napoleon's health and condition foretold imminent death. James Kemble is to be congratulated on the further NAPOLEON'S HEALTH service he has rendered to general and medical historians. St Helena during Napoleon's Exile The book is well illustrated and well produced. Correquer's Diary. By James Kemble. Pp. ix+ 297 + 16 ARTHUR MACNALTY plateEmperor's personal physician from 1819 to tho new yolume, and also includes some publications which end a.nd he made the necropsy. Dr Archibald Arnott have appeared since tho last edition of Vertebrate Paleon­ attended Napoleon in the last 35 days. tology. Its function as a companion volume to that text Napoleon lutd frequent attacks of illness-pulmonary is underlined by the fact that no figures are included in t.ubcrrmlosis and haemopt,ysis (1789 and 1803) con­ .Notes and Comments. firnwd at necropsy (his son, the Duke of Reichstadt, died In judging this book one must first be quite clear as to of haemoptysis at 21 years); scabies in Egypt cured by what it is designed to do. Well over a hundred topics arc Corvisart, stones in the bladder, and cystitis. He suffered dealt with in its 253 pages of text, and therefore most from Stokes-Adams disease, heart-block with syncope topics receive only two or three pages of discussion at and epileptiform convulsions. His pulse was only 40. most. In reading these brief discussions of research papers, This accounted for delays when action was imperative, as the experienced vertebrate palaeontologist may often at Borodino and Watel'loo, for instance, as Sir William fool that they have been very summarily treated, and that Osler and Sir Arthur Keith have maintained. At St more could hn,ve been said for the opposing Yiews. But Helena the heart condition became settled and his pulse Notes and Comments is not itself a research publication: normal. After several fiery interviews, Napoleon refused Homer has published, and is still publishing, research to see Sir Hudson Lowe for the last five yea.m of his papers on a great variety of subjects, ma.inly concerned exile. with fish, amphibians and reptiles, and it is to those Except for a brief note that Napoleon looked ill, that one must turn for more dota.iled expositions of his Correquer's diary gives no information about his death. arguments. The function of Notes and Comments is to Arnott. did not at first recognize the true nature of indicate to the now student what the important papers Napoleon's illness, regarding it as caused by inflammation are in any given field of Yertebrate palaeontology and, o[ the liver, until the signs and symptoms of cancer of the by a brief discussion, to indicat0 any controversies that

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