Dual Authorship Research Articles

The Pharmacologic Principles of Medical Practice: A Textbook on Pharmacology and Therapeutics for Medical Students, Physicians, and the Members of the Professions Allied to Medicine

An Introduction to Pharmacology. By J. J. Lewis. 3rd ed. 1,048 pp, with illus. $11.50. Williams & Wilkins, 428 E Preston St, Baltimore 2, 1964 These books are reviewed together as both are on the same subject, and represent revised editions. And both of them, with single or dual authorship, contrast with the multi-authored texts edited by one or two people. The Krantz and Carr volume follows the format established in the first edition in 1949. Drugs are classified by their major therapeutic use under eight major headings such as autonomic nervous system and metabolism. This simplification makes the book a little difficult to use by those accustomed to the more-usual detailed classifications. The authors have retained the practice of including historical references and illustrations of famous contributors to pharmacology. On the whole, the present revision is fairly complete, although some sections have not been as extensively revised as others.

The Blood Bank and the Technique and Therapeutics of Transfusion

To use the authors' own statement, this book is a “readily available compendious and expository source” of information relative to transfusions. If individuals having no knowledge of the various methods of administering whole blood or plasma and storing whole blood or plasma had access to only one book, this compilation most nearly would fill all requirements. The book is based on the experience derived from some 7,000 transfusions and almost half that many references to the literature. For example, one chapter contains 913 references in its bibliography. There is an apparently unavoidable amount of repetition in certain chapters, particularly as regards the military use of blood or plasma and various statements made will sometimes seem contradictory. This perhaps may be related to the dual authorship. Scattered typographical errors are noted, as for example, the statement is made that “Aletrin in a dosage of 0.3 grams” should be used in the treatment of malignant tertian malaria.

The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics.

on pharmacology and the rational use of drugs, 42 authors share the herculean task of reviewing the flood of recent literature. Under single or dual authorship they contribute the 76 chapters in the 18 sections. The "liberal use of extract (fine) type as a space-saving device" allows nearly twice as much material under one cover. Although portions printed in smaller type "are of somewhat lesser importance," in most cases it will be necessary and profitable to read these. For example, extract type is used to narrate the historical background and to discuss complex structure-activity relationships, significant laboratory and clinical studies, the types of preparations, dosages and routes of administration, side effects and adverse reactions, and the therapeutic uses. Each chapter offers a complete and up-to-date review. Usually, enough information is given so that

Present State of Piers Plowman Studies

From Elizabethan times up to recent date, it was assumed that one man, Robert or William Langland, or even Piers Plowman himself,' had written the poem which is known as Piers Plowman. Although Moore2 has contended that until 1802 only the B-text was known, variations in the poem were early recognized.3 Whitaker, in 1787, and Ritson, in 1802, mention two distinct versions, but they did not doubt that they were both by the same author. It is true that, as Moore has pointed out, the former believed the C-text was the original version, yet that is not a serious objection to the validity of his opinion. Richard Price, who was the first to recognize the existence of the A-text in 1824,4 believed that the three versions were the work of one man. Thomas Wright, however, unaware of Price's discovery, contended in his edition of the poem that the two versions were the work of two men. George Marsh, the American scholar, in his Lectures on the English Language (1860) also maintained a theory of dual authorship. His views are probably based upon Wright's. In any case, it can be definitely stated that tradition, with one or two exceptions, has favored the assumption of a single author. Too much weight cannot be put upon eighteenthand nineteenth-century evidence, however, as it is far too late to represent anything but the individual opinion of the critics. Skeat, in his great edition, has confirmed this view. In his preface to the edition of the A-text (1866-67), he briefly sketched his reasons for believing in single authorship, and his opinion is entitled to the highest respect. In the years that followed, the weight of Skeat's authority fixed this opinion so firmly in the world of scholarship that Hopkins in 1898 could write, 'his [Langland's] style and method are so distinct, that there is scarcely an opportunity to question the authorship of any part of it as the work of others is so often questioned.' In January, 1906, Manly, of Chicago, published a short article in Modern

The Dual Authorship of the Kavya-prakasa

It is, I believe, familiar knowledge that the work on Rhetoric called Kāvya-prakāśa was composed by two authors, Mammaṭa and Alaka or Alaṭa. The traditional verse quoted by Rājānaka Ānanda, in his commentary entitled Kāvya-prakāśa-nidarśanā—informs us that Mammaṭa wrote the work as far as Parikara, and the rest was completed by Alaka. Sanskrit scholars therefore inferred that “about a third of the last chapter on Figures of Speech, or roughly speaking a tenth of the whole work, was written by Alaka, i.e. from the second half of the 118th, verse onwards”. But the reference to the joint authorship of the seventh Ullāsa by Arjunavarmadeva has given rise to the question whether “Alaka had a hand not only in the tenth, but also in the seventh chapter”. An attempt is made in the present article to examine the question and to arrive, if possible, at some definite conclusion in the matter.

XVIII. Thomas Randolph's Part in the Authorship of Hey for Honesty

Hey for honesty, the lively seventeenth century adaptation of the Plutus of Aristophanes, was long attributed without question to the joint authorhip of Thomas Randolph and a certain F. J. whose identity has never been ascertained. The title-page of the first edition reads: “. A Pleasant Comedie, Entituled Hey for Honesty, Down with Knavery. Translated out of Aristophanes his Plutus, by Tho: Randolph. Augmented and Published by F. J.” This unambiguous statement of dual authorship went unchallenged until 1875. Several attempts were then made to prove that Randolph had no part whatever in the translation, and that the whole play was written by F. J. It is the purpose of this article to present new evidence, first, that the play is in truth the result of dual authorship, and second, that Thomas Randolph was the original translator and adapter.

Book Reviews

THE mode in which this volume has been produced is rather curious. In 1873 M. Meignan, who had already travelled in the regions around the Levant for pleasure, took it into his head that, by way of contrast to these lands of the sun, he would like to see a land where snow and ice were predominant, and accordingly he undertook to travel from France to China through Siberia. He appears to have had no object in the journey but the pleasure of motion and of seeing new and strange objects. It was undertaken in the winter, and the traveller naturally saw, and was interested in, Moscow, Nijni-Novgorod, the Urals, and so travelled through Siberia by Omsk to Irkutsk. After a short stay in the latter place he pursued his journey through Kiachta, Urga, and Kalgan to Pekin. Many travellers have done the journey before and since; it is a long and tedious one, and perhaps that is as much as can be said for it. Mr. Conn talks of crossing “the trackless Desert of Gobi” on the way, but this is an abuse of language. The only part of the Gobi passed is that between Urga and Kalgan, two considerable trading cities, between which caravans, couriers, and travellers go daily along a high road which is a very good one as roads go in Asia. But M. Meignan, having done the journey, and being of a lively and amusing turn, wrote an account of it some time after his arrival in France. This account of a journey in 1873 Mr. Conn has “edited” in 1885; he has, he says, produced a modified version rather than a translation, the modifications consisting in correcting the slipshod style of the original, in producing “a more just co-ordination of parts and subordination of minor details,” and also in expanding the original here and there. The volume, notwithstanding this dual authorship, is pleasant reading, much as a tolerably written account of a journey in Wales or Scotland would be pleasant. There are not a few errors, especially as the traveller gets farther east, but these cannot seriously interfere with such enjoyment as may be derived from a perusal of the volume. As Mr. Conn has a taste for this species of literary work—having published another volume, an adaptation or translation of a Japanese tale by a French writer, during the year— we would suggest to him that he should select his originals more carefully. A sterling popular work in French or German might very easily prove a sterling popular work in English; there can be little real use in reproducing trumpery French books in English, except to add to the already enormous mass of similar indigenous literature in England.