profession with a volume that is thoroughly practical, as he demonstrates most ably how the rays can be made to aid the surgeon in his work; the book being further added to in value by plenty of illustrations, showing the methods to be employed. Dr. Beck deserves congratulations on the results of his labors, and we bespeak for his volume a hearty reception at the hands of his confreres in the profession.

W. A. Y.

A System of Physiologic Therapeutics, a Practical Exposition of the Methods, other than Drug-Giving, Useful for the Prevention of Disease, and in the Treatment of the Sick. Edited by SOLOMON SOLIS COHEN, A.M., M.D., Senior Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine in Jefferson Medical College; Physician to the Jefferson Medical College Hospital and to the Philadelphia, Jewish and Rush Hospitals, etc. Vol. VIII.-Rest, Mental Therapeutics, Suggestion by Francis X. Dercum, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Nervous and Mental Diseases in the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia; Neurologist to the Philadelphia Hospital, Consulting Physician to the Asylum for the Chronic Insane at Wernersville, etc., etc. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son & Co., 1012 Walnut Street. Canadian Agents: Chandler & Massey Limited, Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg. 1904.

Vol. VIII. of Physiologic Therapeutics is divided into three parts, number one being devoted to Rest, number two to Therapeutics of Mental Diseases, and number three to Suggestion. The book in its first 150 pages will be found to be chiefly exponent of what is frequently spoken of as the Rest Cure, the form of treatment used, chiefly in institutions, for patients of nervous disposition, and whose condition hardly necessitates resorting to any particular form of medication. Part I. goes into Chronic Fatigue (the fatigue neurosis); Rest in Neurasthenia and Allied. States, Hysteria and its different Phenomena, Etiologic Factors, Treatment by Rest and Physiologic Methods, Hypochondria, and the Application of Rest in Chorea and Other Functional Nervous Diseases. Part II. consists of less than 100 pages, and deals with the Prevention of Insanity, the General Principles of the Treatment of the Insane and the Treatment of the Special Forms of Mental Disease. Perhaps the most interesting part of the volume is Section III., devoted to Suggestion. The treatment of such conditions as hysteria, hypochondria and neurasthenia by suggestion is dealt with, going to show that in many cases considerable relief can be afforded thereby. The book closes with a chapter devoted to such subjects as Pythonism, Shamanism, Magnetism, Mesmerism, Hypnotism, Metallotherapy, Mind Cure, Faith Cure and Eddyism.

A Practical Treatise on Medical Diagnosis for Students and Physicians. By JOHN H. MUSSER, M.D., Professor of Clinical Medicine in the University of Pennsylvania; Physician to the Philadelphia and the Presbyterian Hospitals; Consulting Physician to the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia, and to the West Philadelphia Hospital for Women, to the Rush Hospital for Consumptives, and the Jewish Hospital of Philadelphia, etc., etc. Fifth edition, revised and enlarged. Illustrated with 395 wood-cuts and 63 colored plates. Philadelphia and New York: Lea Bros. & Co. 1904.

"The most effective way in which an author can evince his gratitude for favor shown to a book is to keep it a fair exponent of its subject." Such forms the opening sentence to the author's preface to his fifth edition, and it takes but a few minutes for any of his readers to find out that it is Dr. Musser's one desire to keep his now well-known book on Medical Diagnosis to the forefront, by that means sustaining the reputation it has gained for itself in past years. "Musser's Diagnosis" has for some

time been considered to be one of the very best works on the subject published, and in its fifth edition it equals any and outstrips several of what might be termed its competitors, e.g., books dealing with the same branch of medicine. The edition is larger than any preceding one, the entire work having been completely revised and many illustrations added. The author lays great stress upon clinical laboratory methods as the only true basis for "precision in diagnosis."

A System of Practical Surgery. By PROF. E. VON BERGMANN, M.D., of Berlin; PROF. P. VON BRUNS, M.D., of Tubingen, and PROF. J. VON MIKULICZ, M.D., of Breslau. Volume II. Surgery of the neck, thorax and spinal column. Translated and Edited by WILLIAM T. BULL, M.D., Professor of Surgery, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, and CARLTON P. FLINT, M.D., Instructor in Minor Surgery, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. New York and Philadelphia: Lea Brothers & Co. 1904.

The subjects dealt with in this volume are the malformations, injuries and diseases of the neck, thorax and spinal column. The author has the happy faculty of expressing his thoughts concisely; and the translators have done ample justice to the author in the employment of clear, terse, vigorous English. It may fairly be said that in some instances his exposition is too brief. His discussion of wry-neck occupies only twelve pages, and even in this space the subject is well illustrated. The desire for

brevity, however, has caused him to dismiss the important feature of diagnosis, while much that is of great importance to the general practitioner remains unsaid. A writer, however, may be excused because of too great brevity when one recalls the fact that the common sin of these large systems is to load themselves up with much that is mere padding. In the treatment of such a subject as goitre it would be confidently expected that the operative treatment would receive full consideration, and it does. His conservatism, however, is manifest in the place which he assigns to the medicinal treatment. One might reasonably look for some reference to the treatment of goitre by electricity; this, however, is not mentioned. In dealing with the subject of spinal bifida the author takes the responsibility of recommending radical operation as being indicated in the great majority of cases. The subject is considered with great clearness and fulness though the account is very concise. His discussion of the diseases and deformities of the spinal column is quite as satisfactory as one may expect outside the pages of a monograph upon that subject. The paper, illustrations and binding do ample credit and justice to the well-known firm who are publishing this work in America. B. E. M'K. Commoner Diseases of the Eye; How to Detect and How to Treat Them. By CASEY A. WOOD, C.M., M.D., D.C.L., Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology in the University of Illinois, etc., and THOMAS A. WOODRUFF, M.D., C.M., L.R.C.P., Professor of Ophthalmology in the Chicago Post-Graduate Medical School, Chicago, etc.; 250 illustrations; 7 colored plates; 500 pp. 5 x 8 in. $1.75 net. G. P. Engelhard & Co., Chicago.

One opens this little book with special interest because it is written by two Canadians who have won some reputation in the land of their adoption. It is most satisfying both in its clearness and completeness. Considering Ophthalmology from the standpoint of the physician in general practice it is free from many of the erudite discussions which frighten the general practitioner away from the standard works on the subject.

J. M. M.

Diseases of the Eye. By L. WEBSTER Fox, A.M., M.D., Professor of Ophthalmology in the Medico-Chirurgical College of Philadelphia, Pa., with five colored plates and 296 illustrations in the text. New York and London: D. Appleton & Company. 1904.

The three features which strike the reader in this book are the clearness and good size of the print, the great number of illustrations, and the space devoted to operations. Based upon

lectures delivered to students at the Medico-Chirurgical College, it is described by the author as a digested summary of the known facts of Ophthalmology. Facts are very often more or less colored by personal tendencies, and this, in the case of Dr. Fox, seems to be altogether towards operation. This same tendency influences the illustrations, some of which cause one to wonder why they were inserted. "Before and after operation" illustrations may be de rigueur in Philadelphia text-books, but they savor somewhat unduly of a desire to impress upon the reader the operator's skill. The personal element in medical books is all too rare, so that one must not cavil overmuch, for aside from these little flaws the book is no mean addition to one's library.

J. M. M.

A Guide to the Clinical Examination of the Blood for Diagnostic Purposes. By RICHARD C. CABOT, M.D. With colored plates and engravings. Fifth Revised Edition. New York: William Wood & Company. 1904. Canadian agents: Chandler & Massey Limited, Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg.

In the introduction to this valuable work the author gives his views on the scope and value of blood examination. He says there are probably not more than five or six diseases in which the blood examination gives a certain and positive diagnosis, but there is a very considerable number of conditions in which the blood examination will help in making the diagnosis, and that very often the simple discovery that the blood is normal may be of the greatest value in diagnosis. He also says that improvements in technique have lessened the labor and increased the accuracy of blood examination so much that the most important facts about the blood of nearly every case can be obtained by a practiced observer in fifteen minutes.

These methods for the clinical examination of the blood, as well as its physiology and pathology, are fully described in the first part of the work. The second part of the book is devoted to the special pathology of the blood.

Full descriptions are given of the changes usually found in blood in such diseases as anemia and leukemia, in acute and chronic infectious diseases, in malignant disease, blood parasites and intestinal parasites, and in diseases of special organs.

The Widal reaction in typhoid fever is discussed in a very interesting chapter on examination of serum.

The book contains a very large number of very good illustrations, many of the colored ones being very beautiful. No one who is interested in the subject of blood examination can afford to be without this excellent work by Dr. Cabot.

A. E.

Abbott's Alkaloidal Digest, a Brief Therapeutics of Some of the Principal Alkaloidal Medicaments, with Suggestions for Clinical Application, embodying various articles on important special agents and certain great phases of Alkaloidal Therapy that have been developed in my personal practice. By W. Chi

C. ABBOTT, M.D., editor Alkaloidal Clinic, etc., etc. cago: The Clinic Publishing Co. 1904.

On the title page of this little book appear the following words: "In therapeutics use the smallest possible quantity of the best obtainable means to produce a desired therapeutic result." Into that motto is boiled down the secret of alkaloidal therapy, a new form of medication, the principles of which are laid down in Dr. Abbott's book now before us. The Digest will be found to be a handy vade-mecum, full of suggestions as to the uses of alkalometry, a system of medication that in many quarters is rapidly gaining friends.

A Manual of Nursing. By REYNOLD WEBB WILCOX, M.A., M.D., LL.D., Professor of Medicine in the New York PostGraduate Medical School and Hospital; Consulting Physician to the Nassau Hospital; Visiting Physician to St. Mark's Hospital; Fellow of the American Academy of Medicine; Member of the American Therapeutic Society, etc. Illustrated. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son & Co., 1012 Walnut Street. 1904. Canadian Agents: Chandler & Massey Limited, Toronto and Montreal.

This volume contains the lectures on fever nursing, which were delivered in substance to the nurses of St. Mark's Hospital during the session of 1903-4. Fevers are first taken up in a general way; then symptoms, causation and treatment; the use of the clinical thermometer, pulse and respiration are discussed. After this the various fevers are considered in detail, and the nurse is given a very clear and practical knowledge of the subject, and one which, to our mind, is essential for good results. We have much pleasure in recommending this little work to our friends in the nursing profession.

W. J. W.

The Bacteriology of Every-Day Practice. By J. ODERY SYMES, M.D., State Medicine (Lond.), D.P.H., etc.; Assistant Physician and Bacteriologist, British General Hospital. Second edition. London: Bailliere, Tindall & Cox, 8 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. 1904.

This is the second of the Medical Monograph Series, and its aim is to sketch in brief compass the chief features of given