clear and concise a writer, so experienced and able a clinician, yet, withal, so modest but eminent an authority in this department of internal medicine for the editorship of this volume as Dr. Stockton.

BURDETT'S HOSPITALS AND CHARITIES, 1903.-By SIR HENRY BURDETT, K. C. B., London: The Scientific Press, Ltd.

It is a pleasure to meet with a work so extensive in its character as this, and devoted so wholly to a subject inadequately and in but a fragmentary manner regarded in general. We know of no other book that approaches "Burdett's Annual" in point of information about hospitals. The time is probably not far distant when something of the nature will be put out in this country, but it will have to go to "Burdett" for much both by way of a model and the contents to be incorporated in the pattern.

CUSHNY'S PHARMACOLOGY AND THERAPEUTICS.-A Text-Book of Pharmacology and Therapeutics; or, the Action of Drugs in Health and Disease, By ARTHUR R. CUSHNY, A. M., M. D., Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, University of Michigan, Department of Medicine and Surgery, Ann Arbor, Mich. Third edition, revised and enlarged. In one handsome octavo volume of 750 pages, with 52 engravings. LEA BRothers & Co., Publishers, Philadelphia and New York, 1903.

The third edition of this manual is now before us, this edition representing such advancements as have occurred during the year and a half since the last issuance, especially noted in the article on alcohol, the increasing use of cocaine as a local anesthetic, and touching the therapeutic properties of the adrenal gland.

Previous editions of this work have not been reviewed in these pages, and there is therefore a temptation to look more into the teaching represented than otherwise would occur. This both in the interest of the readers of these lines (the first interest) seeking information of books in general, and

this book in particular, as well as the interest that is personal to a reviewer in learning for his own satisfaction what new or changed opinions or facts a book brings out.

In the volume under discussion some things have been noted that will be pointed out and quoted with the sole view of indicating the status of therapeutic opinion of the present, for the purpose of contrast and conviction rather than

criticism.

With regard to the use of colchicum in gout, we are informed: "Up to a few years ago the routine treatment was wine of colchicum, but of late many physicians have denied that any benefit whatsoever was obtained from its use. Others maintain that colchicum is at any rate the most efficacious drug available in many cases, and here the matter stands, but the use of colchicum in gout is not universal now, as it was formerly."

Perhaps, strictly speaking, the wine of colchicum to-day finds but small use compared with the past, for all the cruder, liquid preparations have suffered relegation during late years. But that is not saying that colchicum in a form more elegant and efficacious has been tabooed.

It is readily admitted that this agent is now, and always has been, administered in this disease, and allied affections, in a strictly empirical manner; still it has been of signal value in mitigating, if nothing more, and so long as any other substance must be used in the same manner, and so long as colchicum is of more value than anything else, just to that extent will it be in favor and be employed.

We believe the author is wrong in estimating a decline in the value of, and the use of, colchicum.

Due credit is given the salicylates in the treatment of acute rheumatism, the author maintaining that in this disease it (salicylic acid) "seems to have a specific action only excelled by that of quinine in malaria."

It is a clinical fact that in many cases of non-specific, acute cystitis benzoic acid may be looked upon as having an

abortive influence.

This has been shown so many times that it stands out clearly in experience. Cushny scarcely gives it any place at all in this regard.

The author's views touching all the so-called healing waters that people run after in hordes and make the wildest kind of statements about, are entirely bereft of sentiment. Especially of saline waters announced to cure many diseases he remarks:

"The bath treatment has been recommended for numerous diseases in which the salt and water could not possibly have any beneficial action, and in which the remedial agent is the climate, and perhaps the faith of the patient in the water. Belief in the healing power of certain natural waters is one of the most ancient of therapeutic theories, is found among altogether uncivilized peoples, and has been incorporated in many religions. It is not to be wondered at that in some nervous disorders the faith of the patient and auto-suggestion perform some marvelous 'cures.'

So far as we have observed the book under examination is particularly notable in its conservatism-there is a disinclination to make any kind of, a therapeutic statement in the absence of absolutely convincing proof. While many authorities and investigators are quoted, yet after all there is not the usual amount of this kind of information. One fails to find the widespread dogmatism of Bartholow, there is none of the experimentalism of Wood, and but little of the hearsay of Hare.

NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.

The April, 1903, issue of the Practical Medicine Series of Year Books is on "Obstetrics," under the special editorship of Dr. Reuben Peterson, now professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the University of Michigan.

The volume, like the others of the series, stands as a

good resumé of the progress in this branch during the recent past.

The third edition of "Stoney's Practical Points in Nursing" (W. B. Saunders & Co.) is now out. The book has been well revised and no doubt will continue to enjoy, in yet larger degree, the popularity the preceding editions have won.

There is a good glossary, many illustrations, and a number of tables.

"Veasey's Ophthalmology" (Lea Bros. & Co.) is a 12mo. manual, especially designed, we take it, for the use of students. There are ten full-page plates and two hundred engravings, lending much practical elucidation to the clear statement of the text.

There are 412 pages altogether.

Clinical Review.

AUGUST, 1903.

Original Articles.

TWO CASES OF MULTIPLE NEURITIS.-By SIDNEY KUH, M. D., Rush Medical College, Chicago.

The opportunity presents itself of showing you two cases of a disease, not in itself uncommon, and typically represented by our patients, but in both instances associated with some very rare and rather interesting phenomena.

Our first patient is a woman, forty-six years old, married. If we attempt to obtain a history of her trouble, we meet with conflicting statements. At one moment she speaks of having been ill two weeks, a few minutes later she states that three weeks have elapsed since she began to suffer, etc.—an evident defect of memory. After an unusually hard day's work she noticed paræsthesia in the lower extremities, on the following morning she was so weak that she could no longer stand on her feet and sharp, shooting pains developed first in the feet, but rapidly extending up to the thighs, in paroxysms lasting from five to ten minutes at a time, with intermissions from one-quarter to one-half hour's duration. This pain hast remained practically unchanged since the first day of her ill

ness.

No reliable family history can be obtained. Her mother is supposed to have died of dropsy at an unknown age. Two brothers and three sisters are also dead, but the causes of their deaths the patient cannot give.