390 REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. chanical method by citation of cases which have come within his personal observation, calling attention to both peculiar and unforeseen difficulties, and introducing, whenever possible, such practical hints as may facilitate the execution of the various manipulations. After an introduction, the history of mechano-therapy, and the Ling method, the following subjects are considered: I. Definition of Massage; II. Physiological Effects; III. Description of Mechanical Interferences; IV. Active Movements, and V. Diseases suited to Mechano-therapy. THE CURABILITY OF INSANITY AND THE INDIVIDUALIZED TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. BY JOHN S. BUTLER, M. D., Hartford, Conn. Late Physician and Superintendent of the Connecticut Retreat. for the Insane, etc. Flexible cloth, 16mo., pp. 59. New York and London. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1887. Price 60 cents. We are indebted to the writer for many interesting incidents of his long association with the insane, concerning the exercise of that personal sympathy and moral suasion, of which comparatively few know anything whatever. Of the main question with him at issue, whether or not the hopelessly insane should be separated from those considered curable, we withhold a committal of opinion, while we commend his arguments and citations for their separation to those who, from conviction or expediency, oppose his views. SYPHILIS. BY JONATHAN HUTCHISON, F. R. S., LL. D., Consulting Surgeon to the London Hospital; Vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons. With 8 chromo-lithographs, 12 mo, p.p. 552, cloth. Lea Brothers & Co., Publishers, Philadelphia. This is one of the best of the Clinical Manual series that Lea Brothers have yet brought out. Its distinguished author has long been recognized as an authority on the subject, and his excellent work needs no commendation at our hands. It is a most satisfactory clinical exposition of the subject. He is a firm believer in that the disease depends upon a living and specific microbe, and that it is contagious or transmittable only so long as that microbe retains its vitality. ANEMIA. BY FREDERICK P. HENRY, Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Philadelphia Hospital; one of the physicians to the Episcopal Hospital, etc, etc. Reprinted from the Polyclinic. 24m0. Boards. pp. 136. Philadelphia. P. Blakiston, Son & C., No. 1012 Walnut street. 1887. Price 75 cents. This most excellent little work in a very pleasant way presents the applications of physiology, normal and disturbed, to its pregnant subject. It is marked by an evidently thorough conversance of its author with his task, and no physician can read it without either pleasure or personal advantage. DISEASES OF THE HEART, Volume I. By DUJARDIN BEAUMETZ, M. D. Translated by E. P. HURD, M. D., (The Physicians' Leisure Concise and cheap compendiums are now the order of the day in medical as well as other literature, and the Leisure Library series leads the van. This little volume is limited to the treatment of valvular lesions of the heart, the result of endocarditis, yet contains the principles of treatment applicable to all cardiac affections. THE TREATMENT of HæmorrhOIDS by injections of carbolic acid and other substances. By SILAS T. Yount, M. D., physician to St. Elizabeth Hospital; member American Medical Association, Indiana State Medical Society, Tippecanoe County Medical Society, etc. 12 mo., cloth, p.p. 64. Echo Music Company, Printers, LaFayette, Ind. The above is the title of a very excellent little monograph, giving full and explicit instructions in regard to the treatment of hæmorrhoids by injections. We can, after a careful examination, commend it to our readers. TRANSACTIONS OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE, 1887. Fifty-fourth Annual Meeting. 8 vo., paper, p.p. 315. The Tennessee Transactions for the current year are notable in being the most voluminous of any of its predecessors, while its subject matter will bear favorable comparison with any. The discussions following the essays and papers, add no little to its value as a means of showing the tide of current opinion in regard to the various subjects under consideration. We have not space in this number to give the volume that consideration it deserves, but have no hesitation in the opinion that it will meet with a most favorable reception by the profession. Editorial. AN ALLEGATION OF PRIORITY. but He now states all seriousness, "Not long ago we mentioned a proposition put forth by the humorous feuilletoniste of the Union Medicale to the effect that no apparatus was necessary for carrying out the Bergeon treatment, that it would answer to make the patient eat beans. that Prof. Ewald afterward presented the idea, in at a meeting of the Gasellschaft fur inner Medicin of Berlin. But "Simplissime's" feuilleton was dated May 18th, and it was not until the 4th of July that Ewald's suggestion was made, so that the Frenchman was thirty-seven days ahead. He maintains that Ewald must have known of his article, for, he says, he is very much read in Germany, as was shown by the avalanche of abuse heaped on him by German journalists two or three years ago, because, as they thought, he had spoken somewhat disrespectfully of the German Chancellor. It is only the rich that are robbed, he adds; as he has no intention of allowing his ideas to be taken possession of. Therefore he is going to write a letter to the president of the Berlin society, setting forth the title to priority in this matter, and allowing himself a candidate for corresponding membership, in which candidacy he counts on Prof. Ewald's support. Mutatis mutandis, much of this whimsical line of argument would fit many a case in which vigorous contests as to priority are carried on."-New York Medical Journal, Aug. 20, 1887. Although our gynecological friend is not by any means a Croesus, we do not intend that he shall be robbed by Prof. Ewald, or any other The following we reproduce from our pages of April last. It is, by the way, all that we have thought necessary to encumber our pages with in regard to the Bergeon method: man. "We have noticed for some time past going the rounds of the journals the therapeutic novelty, suggested by Dr. Bergeon, of Lyons, namely, the injection into the rectum of sulphurous acid and carbonic acid gases, in consumption. This treatment is based upon the idea that the gases will be absorbed by the blood, pass through the diseased lungs, acting as a germicide, and necessarily destroying the bacilla. As the paraphernalia for carrying out this suggestion is somewhat complicated, a distinguished Nashville gynæcologist suggests as an improvement that the patient be placed upon a diet of beans, sweet potatoes, and horse-chestnuts, accompanied by a liberal use of sodawater, thus securing the constant presence of the gases, and at the same time kill two birds with one stone." STREET SPRINKLING IN CITIES. The following paragraph is from that sterling and valuable drug journal, The National Druggist, of St. Louis: "The question of sprinkling the streets of St. Louis systematically, so that the dust will be kept down in all parts of the city, has been under consideration by the officials for some time. Dust is not only a disagreeable nuisance, but a cause of ill health. The human lungs are so constructed that they can, to a great extent, purify air containing dust, but the man is not prepared, like verbascum thapsus, to grow in an atmosphere of dust." There is no question but that dust is an unquestionably disagreeable nuisance, but we question the propriety of avoiding or abating it by means of sprinkling. Our reasons, briefly stated, are as follows: It is 1. The most expensive. 2. The most unsanitary, and 3. The most unsatisfactory method. The necessity of frequent repetition during the hours exposed to the sun, the resulting mud, which is but little better than the dust, and the continual evaporation of artificial moisture, loaded with the results of organic decomposition, and all kinds of disease germs, whose vitality is preserved in an active state by the necessary moisture, during the busy hours of city life, are, we think, self evident facts that can not be controverted. To our mind the proper, practical and only satisfactory method of getting rid of the dust, is by having the streets properly prepared with a sufficiently even surface, and during the night or early morning hours, have them properly swept and the sweepings carried away and either burned or used in the rural districts as fertilizers. The sweeping may be preceded, if necessary, by a moderate sprinkling. : 1 ILLEGITIMACY.—The following has been going the rounds of our exchanges for some months past: "Dr. Arthur Mitchell, from a large number of statistics, has come to the conclusion that illegitimacy is a very common cause of idiocy; the mental agony undergone by the mother causing an arrest of development of the embryo, giving rise to congenital or developmental idiocy. -North-Western Lancet." While we do not wish to place a premium on illegitimacy, such has not been in accord with our observation, nor that of others from whom we have made inquiry. Facts, not statements, establish the rules of all science. In Lear, act 1, scene 2nd, we have the following: Stand in the plague of custom; and permit The curiosity of nations to despise me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines Lag of a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore base? My mind as generous and my shape as true, As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us More composition and fierce quality * |