St Johns College - Ozanam Yearbook (Toledo, OH)

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52 THE OZANAM he tumed his attention to literature and wrote many magazine articles. He usually dealt with medico-historical subjects and finally evolved a theory that actions are greatly de- termined by health, and that people's actions can often be explained by examining their physical condition. His earlier book, Post Mortem, pub- lished in 1923, had already discussed the theory. As the author says it is not unlikely that some physical ailment in some important person has changed the history of nations, and even if the results were not so great, yet disease probably had some control over the character of the afflicted person. Of course it is difficult to diagnose the dis- eases of the ancients at this late date but often symptoms are revealed in writings, and from these a strong case can at times be built up. The doctor admits that no medical man ought to offer a diagnosis without having seen the patient. At times due to too much guess- work and occasionally superficiality his de- scriptions seem to lack truth but in general they are very well done. The characters in- cluded for discussion are Dr. Johnson, King Henry VIII, Martin Luther, Ivan the Terri- ble, Mary Tudor, Queen Elizabeth, Henry Fielding, Frederick the Great, Arthur Scho- penhauer, and several others. Martin Luther was suffering from a disease of the labyrinth, a disease of the inner ear, that caused him to hear dreadful noises and served to instil in him a fear of the devil. Dr. MacLaurin claims that this probably changed the course of history. Dr. Johnson is said tohave suffered from an ailment closely resembled to neurasthemia and generally the result of heredity and ab- normal education in early youth. This is attributed to the gloomy disposition of John- son's father and an incident that happened when Johnson was a child. He was taken before Queen Anne to be touched as a cure for a disease of the neck. His nervous ex- citement as he stood before everyone is said by the doctor to have had probably a lifelong effect. The latter declares that it was lucky it did not make him stammer, and claims that this probably caused what Boswell considered a kind of St. Vitus Dance. The book is very interesting and well worth while, especially to those students of history who wish to gain more knowledge of men's motives for their actions. The book attempts to show that history has not dealt fairly with many important persons whose crimes are as attributable to disease as to defects of their character. Perhaps those of us who, since the World War have been shouting isolation and strenu- ously opposing everything that might tend to interdependence of our nation with others, will be surprised at the statements contained in Perry BeImont's new book Isolation an Illusion. The writer affirms that the United States has never been, and cannot be isolated from Europe, and that an interde- pendence has existed from the very founda- tion of our government. Furthermore, whether the United States enters the League of Na- tions or not that interdependence will neither be increased nor diminished but will remain inevitable and permanent. A serious fault can be found with the book. It seems as if the author had jotted down every thought that occurred to him while he was engaged in its composition, and frequently valuable space is wasted in proclaiming the merits of the Democratic party. To show the interdependence of nations an example is cited. The French Emperor was desirous of taking possession of New Orleans. President Jefferson sent a letter to Robert Livingston, then Minister to France, in which he stated that if the French Em- peror insisted on taking possession of New Orleans we should ally ourselves to England and marry ourselves to the British Heat. And in another letter which he sent to Presi- dent Monroe. he said, Great Britain is the

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THE OZANAM 53 nation which can do us the most harm of anyone, and with her on our side we need not fear the whole world. Witla her. then, we should cherish a. cordial friendship, and nothing would tend more to knit our affections than to be fighting once more side by side in the same cause. It is on the strength of this letter sent by Jefferson to Monroe that Belmont credits Jefferson with the deciding voice in the adoption of this doctrine. While some passages in the book would seem hard to prove yet it cannot be denied that the author has given his readers something to think about. Well! Well! Welll See what is in store for us-about the middle of June a new novel by Donald Ogden Stewart will be pub- lished. The title is The Crazy Fool. The story concerns a crazy fool named Charlie Hatch, who inherited an insane asylum from his uncle. Among the inhabitants were Na- poleon and a lady who was Venus and Martha Washington alternately. The story sounds interesting and if it lives up to its advance notices will no doubt make enjoy- able reading. It is gratifying to note that the Protestant sects are gradually coming to realize the dan- ger of the divorce evil. The Catholic Church early took a determined stand against divorce but Protestantism found no great harm with it. At last, however, Protestantism realizes the danger. The Rev. Walker Gurynne has written a book entitled Divorce in America under Church and State. And the Rt. Rev. W. T. Manning has written the in- troduction. Easy divorce is condemned as an unrnixed evil. The history of divorce is traced and condemned as the greatest social peril. Leg- islation that has been passed in the United States in a vain effort to wipe out the evil is reviewed and its deficiency pointed out. A plea is made for more unified action. The only solution, according to the author, if we must have divorce is to control it by a federal law. Arguments are drawn from the opinion of learned men of ancient and modern times and the opinions of Christ and of the Apos- tles are given. That the danger is great is manifest from the words of the Bishop of New York, who appeals to all Americans who love their country, and care for the fu- ture of the race, to take their stand against this great peril to our life as a nation. If you would read a very interesting arti- cle turn to the World's Work for May and look up the article written by Burton Kline entitled America Discovered Many Times Before Columbus Came. The claim has often been made that Columbus did not dis- cover America, but usually the claims were not supported by evidence. Mr. Kline, how- ever, has gone into philology and takes an argument from the study he has made of the Indian languages. He was greatly surprised to find words in the Indian languages from the French, the Spanish and the Portuguese. The sources used were original reports made by Jesuit missionaries and early traders. It seems that Mr. Kline has a very good argu- ment and he at least deserves credit for try- ing to offer some proof for a claim that is usually made without proof. At last an authoritative work on the Rus- sian Revolution has been published. Pitrim Sorokin, formerly head of the department of sociology in the University of Petrograd, edi- tor of The Will of the People, a member of the all-Russian Peasant's Soviet and of the Constitutional assembly, has called his new work, The Sociology of Revolution. Banished from Russia in 1922 he wrote his book in Czecho-Slovakia. The' Russian rev- olution is heartily condemned. Not only per- sonal experience and observation gave him his material but he also bases his statements on the Bolshevist documents. Not only is the