The sodium salts of stearic, oleic, linoleic and linolenic acids were added to human washed platelet suspensions and platelet-rich citrated plasma. Aggregation of the platelets was measured microscopically and with a turbidimetric method. All of the fatty acids had the ability to produce aggregation when added to washed platelets, but stearic acid, a long-chain saturated fatty acid, was more potent than were the unsaturated acids when added to platelet-rich plasma. Aggregation of platelets by fatty acids required the presence of calcium ions and the aggregation was irreversible. The addition of albumin diminished the aggregating effects of fatty acids, but microscopic aggregates still formed in most instances. Subnormal aggregation was noted when sodium stearate was added to platelet-rich plasma from a patient with a severe deficiency of factor XII (Hageman factor). Thus, fatty acids are now known to have two potential thrombogenic effects: platelet aggregation and the activation of clotting factors involved in the early stages of blood coagulation.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Geographical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Geographical Review. S-UBJECTIVE description, however delightful to contemplate, no longer continuesto satisfy a small but growing group of scholars in geography. The movement is afoot to pattern geography, particularly economic geography, after those branches of science in which the inductive-deductive investigation of systems has been so fruitful. This approach to economic geography involves-though not necessarily always in this order-the observation of voluminous data in the attempt to discover empirical regularities capable of mathematical statement, the formulation of operational functional concepts, and the testing of working hypotheses, the objective being the development of a theory of economic geography. Admittedly, such a prospect is not appealing to an already wellentrenched school of geography the members of which use such phrases as "a feeling for the area," "the personality of the region," and "man-land relationship." The proponents of purely verbal and descriptive methods in geography offer the extreme complexity of geographic reality as the reason for viewing their own endeavors as art.Interestingly enough, however, many who treat geography thus are consistently "outwritten" by the nonprofessionals who have occasion to write on what are considered to be geographic subjects and who also have journalistic skill coupled with imagination and ingenuity. We have come to expect-though we are often disappointed-that the educated layman will be familiar with the facts and descriptions of geography. Surely it is not too much to ask that the professional geographer offer more than just a more detailed knowledge of these facts. Moreover, artistic presentation is not incompatible with scientific endeavor. Doubly blest is the scientist who is capable of good writing. The type of geography which admits the importance of quantification and the appropriateness of statistical methodology, but always as servants and not as masters, would appear to be the best answer the profession can furnish to the embarrassing questions which have arisen during the current debate in academic circles regarding geography's right to be included in the curricula of institutions of higher learning. ONE SOCIAL SCIENCE Four recent books, two by geographers and two by nongeographers, offer much of

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