Introduction to Medical Biometry and Statistics. by Raymond PearlReview by: Margaret Jarman HagoodSocial Forces, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Mar., 1941), pp. 441-442Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2570753 .

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LIBRARY AND WORKSHOP 44I

guished Swedish economist, is unique among recent books on population. For one thing, taking for granted the facts and statistical analyses so dear to our demographers, the book is all on the side of interpretation. More strangely for an economist, Myrdal makes population the end and goal rather than an intrusive and dynamic factor in economic analysis. Because of this, portions of the book read like the writings of the family sociologists in this country. The answer is easy, however. This is a book on policy. Myrdal is not interested in the type of objectivity often maintained by our social scientists.

Myrdal writes as an exponent of the grand tradition in political economy, but his question is how to conserve the population of nations-not how to in- crease their wealth. He makes use of Swedish experience to show how the populations of democracies will soon cease to replenish themselves unless the costs of child rearing are socialized. Even then Myrdal rightly has his doubts, for as the burden of replenishing the population is lifted from the lower classes by the spread of birth control, there is no certainty that the upper classes will raise their net reproduction. Economic considerations are not all in- clusive in this field; and unlike the dic- tatorships, the democracies should make no *attempt to invade the private lives of their citizens. If child rearing makes no contribution to their personal happi- ness, citizens, Myrdal admits, owe no duty to the state to replace the popula- tion. Again the democracies would ap- pear inept, were it not for the feeling that neither German nor Italian popula- tion policies have raised their birth rates.

Nothing is said of the effect of war on fertility and replacements, and the Swed- ish population policy is sketched only

in its barest details. The ultimate costs of redistribution in kind, housing, lunches for school children, social services for mothers, etc., are admittedly great, but much of this cost, Myrdal feels, can be written off in connection with the agri- cultural and housing budgets or incor- porated with the program of depression spending as adopted in Sweden. The whole tone of the book while liberal and reformist is decidedly depressing. If we have come to a stagnant economy, the program itself seems impossible and a stationary population hopeless of attain- ment. While under such conditions the pressure toward socialism might be great, socialism would have the unhappy task of liquidating a dead and cold economy. More than once in the reading this re- viewer felt in the background-not the Swedish population budget-but the dying closes of Spengler's Untergang des Abendlandes. For the European democra- cies the war has hastened the downward spiral in population. For Sweden it will mean, no doubt, the abandonment of the population program.

RUPERT B. VANCE

University of North Carolina.

INTRODUCTION TO MEDICAL BIOMETRY AND STATISTICS.

Third edition, revised and enlarged. By Raymond Pearl. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company, I940. 537 pp. $7.00. Illustrated.

For those sociologists whose research fields include vital statistics this text offers excellent supplementation to the more comprehensive and general texts on social statistics. Nonmedical students should not be frightened away by the adjective "medical" in the title, for the methods and illustrations in the text are taken almost altogether from the field of vital statistics. Particularly for those who have had no experience with the actual collection of such material is

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442. SOCIAL FORCES

Pearl's critical evaluation of the raw data of biostatistics recommended.

It is regrettable that the book was not brought up to date so thoroughly in developments in statistical theory and interpretation as in content of illustra- tions. Like many other seasoned schol- ars, Pearl would not relinquish "probable error," even though such a classicist as Yule has recommended "the student to eschew it." While for certain uses the choice of probable or standard error may be merely a matter of preference, there is often associated with the choice of the former an erroneous interpretation of its meaning. Such an interpretation is to be found on page i8 of Pearl's text, where the use of confidence or fiducial limits with their correct interpretation would have greatly enhanced the otherwise excellent section on The Nature of Statistical Knowledge.

To an unusual degree for a book on statistical methods the author's person- ality pervades the text, being manifested in style, in vocabulary, and occasionally in almost extraneous comments. Since sociologists who share with biologists the research field here treated are likely to have a different orientation in social values, they may object to the implica- tions of such comments as the following, "Indeed a curious illumination is thrown upon the complexity of human social phenomena when, at the same time that the mean age at death was increasing at an average rate of more than half a year per year, large and extremely vocal groups were loudly wailing that the American populace was receiving extremely in- adequate medical care." (p. 2o7)

It is because of the author's long and rich experience in this particular field of application of statistical methods that the book is of especial value. First- hand familiarity with the problems, with

the battery of techniques available for attacking them, and with the results of past researches into them made by himself and others gave Pearl an unquestioned advantage in writing authoritatively on biometry. No one who wishes to engage in this field of research-biologist, physi- cian, or sociologist-can safely neglect this most recent treatise on methods by the late dean of biometrists.

MARGARET JARMAN HAGOOD

University of North Carolina

THB PRISON COMMUNITY. By Donald Clemmer. Boston: Christopher Publishing House, I940.

34I PP. $4.00.

The merit of this readable volume is its intimate analysis of the sociological influences of prison life upon the 2300 inmates confined in a typical American State penitentiary. Its inhabitants do not represent the ultra-urbanized prisoners of Sing Sing or Joliet, nor do they live in the modern spick-and-span inclosures of Stateville or Jackson, nor do they enjoy the enlightened privileges of Lewisburg or Annandale. On the other hand, its successive administrations have never been so inept as to engender a prison riot nor so abusive as to provoke a newspaper scandal. The history of its administra- tion has been comparatively uneventful. If it were not handicapped by the prevalent prison problems of largeness and over- crowding, its atmosphere might have become easygoing and even friendly, as in certain of the small Western peniten- tiaries. Because this volume thus de- scribes so typical an American prison it is somewhat unique in penological liter- ature.

The author is a trained sociologist and criminologist who has been for almost ten years on the staffs of the Classification Board and Mental Health Office of the Illinois State prison system. Several

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