is anxious to have them returned. Among the books which have been loaned to his professional friends and not returned, are: Allan's Commercial and Organic Analysis; first volume of Ashurst's International Encyclopædia of Surgery; seventeenth volume Popular Science Monthly. This editorial notice is in tended for our city readers, and if any have the above-mentioned works, they will materially assist the family of our deceased brother by returning them at once. Dr. Davidson's library is also offered for sale, and physicians will find it to their advantage to call upon Mrs. Davidson for any books they may need.

Personal.

MR. LAWSON TAIT, F. R. C. S. E., Professor of Gynecology, Queen's College, Birmingham, England, who visited Albany a few years since and is so kindly remembered by many here, had at the last commencement of Union College the honorary degree of LL.D. conferred upon him by the Board of Trustees. All will agree that this is an honor worthily bestowed.-Albany Medical Annals, July.

GENERAL SHERIDAN'S CASE has, it is universally admitted, been brilliantly managed by his attending physicians. There is some satisfaction in finding that a case which has been so conspicuously before the public is one that illustrates the resources of our art. Certainly, if it were not for medical skill, including careful nursing with the use of powerful drugs, General Sheridan would not have lived so long as he has done.-Medical Record.

Obituary.

DR. J. MILNER FOTHERGILL, one of the most celebrated and prolific medical writers, and a renowned therapeutist, died suddenly in London, June 28, 1888.

DR. A. Y. P. GARNETT, of Washington, died at Rehoboth Beach, Del., July 11, 1888, of heart failure. Dr. Garnett gained some notoriety in the spring of 1861 by his secret communications with the Confederate authorities through his father-in-law, ex-Governor Wise, of Virginia, keeping it advised of the movement of troups, etc., in those early attempts of the Washington government to checkmate the rebellion. He was elected president of the American Medical Association in 1887, and presided at the Cincinnati meeting in May last.

Society Meetings and Notes.

THE British Laryngological and Rhinological Association held its first annual meeting on June 29th. Sir Morell Mackenzie, Bart., was elected president.

THE thirty-seventh meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science will be held at Cleveland, beginning Wednesday, August 15th, and closing Tuesday evening, August 21, 1888.

Book Reviews.

An Illustrated Encyclopædic Medical Dictionary. Being a dictionary of the technical terms used by writers on medicine and the collateral sciences, in the Latin, English, French and German languages. By FRANK P. FOSTER, M. D., editor of the New York Medical Journal, assisted by eleven collaborators. Vol. I., with illustrations. 4to, pp. xii., 752. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1888.

The vocabulary of medicine has become so voluminous of late with its increased nomenclature in all its various branches, as to outgrow all the explanatory word-books extant. When

Dunglison, who has been since 1839 acknowledged authority as a medical lexicographer, published the fourth edition of his dictionary, it was embraced in an octavo volume of 771 pages, and claimed, not without justice, to be a work "in which the student may search, without disappointment, for every term that has been legitimated in the nomenclature of the science."

The first volume of Foster's work, a quarto, contains 752 pages, reaching from A to Cacos only. From this crude comparison some idea may be approximatively obtained as to the enormous growth of medical nomenclature and terminology in the last fifty years.

Up to the present time no adequate dictionary of medical terms has appeared to meet the requirements of the ever-advancing science. CAMPBELL'S Language of Medicine supplies the student and teacher with a great right arm, in attempting to master the origin and construction of medical technology; but its scope is limited as compared with Foster's encyclopaedic work; and, indeed, it is of a nature so different as to hardly permit of comparison with it.

The enormous labor involved in the preparation of the work under consideration is difficult to appreciate, and almost impossible to estimate. Begun in 1881, it has absorbed all the time the editor could possibly devote to such labor down to his recent severe illness, and it is greatly to be feared that his indefatigable application to this arduous duty has had much to do with precipitating the well-nigh fatal malady.

Besides the work bestowed upon it by Dr. Foster, he has been ably assisted by Drs. Ayres, Bronson, Bull, Coe, Currier, Duane, Garrigues, Kelsey, Norris, Wilder and Mr. Gage—all able, accomplished and wisely-chosen co-adjutors-scholars in the broadest sense.

The editor truly says in his preface: "The science in the present age is recorded in no one language; to learn it, one must at least read its exposition in English, French and German." This is at once a plea and a demand for higher medical education. Let no person disregard it in contemplating entrance to

the ranks of medicine; let no teacher ignore it in his zeal to obtain a large matriculant constituency.

It is impossible to adequately review such a comprehensive system of lexicography as Foster's in the narrow limits that may properly be allotted to its consideration in this JOURNAL; nor, indeed, is it necessary, for its first volume is a book that must be seen to be appreciated, and every physician who would do himself justice must possess it. If it be urged that it is too voluminous for a dictionary, and thus too expensive for the average physician, that is not the fault of the editor or publishers, but rather of the science itself, which demands such a vast vocabulary for its exposition. It is one of the growing evils of the literature of medicine that new words, endings, and compoundings are being. constantly added by the thousands. It would be far better, to our mind, if every writer would endeavor to simplify and cut down his vocabulary, rather than to seek the evanescent and doubtful reputation of a mere maker of words.

There is so little about the volume to criticise, we may be pardoned for excepting to the method the author has chosen to credit the contributors with their work. If he had employed the initials of the collaborators for this purpose, numbering them when duplicates appeared (as B', B', etc.), it would have been less confusing. However, this affects only the contributors themselves, and not the value of the work to the purchaser.

One word concerning the publishers' part of the work it is difficult to see how it could have been done better. The illustrations are artistic specimens of wood engraving, the press-work superb, and the paper No. 1, highly-finished book paper,-and altogether, the mechanical work of the volume a credit even to the celebrated house that issues it.

A System of Obstetrics. By American authors. Edited by BARTON COOKE HIRST, M. D., Associate Professor of Obstetrics in the University of Pennsylvania, etc., etc. Volume I. Illustrated with a colored plate and three hundred and nine engravings on wood. Philadelphia: Lea Brothers & Co. 1888.

The contents of this volume are: 1st-History of Obstetrics, by George J. Engelmann, M. D. 2d-The Physiology and

Histology of Ovulation, and Menstruation, and Fertilization, the Development of the Embryo. By H. Newell Martin, F. R. S., M. D. 3d-The Foetus, its Development, Anomalies, Monstrosities, Diseases and Premature Expulsion. By Barton Cooke Hirst, M. D. 4th-Pregnancy: its Physiology, Pathology, Signs and Differential Diagnosis. By William Wright Jaggard, M. D. 5th-The Conduct of Labor and the Management of the Puerperal State. By Samuel C. Busey, M. D. 6th-On the Mechanism of Labor and the Treatment of Labor based on the Mechanism. By R. A. F. Penrose, M. D. 7th-The Use of Anæsthetics in Labor. By J. C. Reeve, M. D. 8th-Anomalies of the Forces in Labor. By Theophilus Parvin, M. D. This work is intended to occupy a similar position in the science and art of obstetrics, as its companion system of gynecology by American authors. The array of eminent writers, the names of whom and their subjects we note above, give rise to large expectations as to the high character of the work. In this volume we have much to commend, and we think the venture in its publication was fully justified. The treatment of the subject is different from the ordinary treatise on obstetrics, and this peculiarity adds value to the work The views of the contributors conflict in some instances. This gives a strong character and increased value to the work. We commend it to our readers.

Atlas of Venereal and Skin Diseases. Comprising original illustrations and selections from the plates of Prof. M. Kaposi, of Vienna; Dr. J. Hutchinson, of London, and Prof. J. Newman, of Vienna, and others. With original text by PRINCE A. MORROW, A. M., M. D., Clinical Professor of Venereal Diseases, formerly Clinical Lecturer on Dermatology in the University of the City of New York; Surgeon to Charity Hospital, Fasculus IV., V., VI., VIII. New York: William Wood & Co. 1888.

In previous numbers of the JOURNAL favorable notice has been given to this important work on "Dermatology," by Messrs. Wood & Co. The high praise given by the reviewer for the initial numbers is abundantly justified in the excellence of the parts we have just received. The fourth fasciculus contains the following plates :