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The Clendening Lectures on the history and philosophy of medicine have been notable for their scholarly character and their wide sweep over a number of aspects of medical history. In these two lectures Ralph Major, who has contributed so conspicuously to American medical history, tackles the wonderfully different subjects of "Disease and Destiny" on the one hand and "Logan Clendening," to honor whose memory the lectureship was endowed, on the other. In the first lecture Dr. Major compresses his erudition in medical history into 21 pages, selecting examples of human destiny as it was swept along or warped under the influence of some great epidemic or disease. The Black Death, the plague of Athens, the malarial blight of Rome, and the cerebral vascular disease of Lenin are examples. Plagues which came near annihilating whole nations certainly turned and bent the history of whole peoples in various directions. The most striking