Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/717

 REVIEWS 703

dealing with such vast masses of population as units. Could we be sure that all Americans or all negroes were of a single origin, such a mode of considering them and dealing with them might be justified. As it is, a generalization drawn from Eskimo may have little applica- tion to Botocudos. The book is handsomely illustrated with pictures of race types and objects of culture in great variety. These them- selves are a valuable contribution to science.

F. STARR.

La Pnberta studiata nelFUomo e nella Doiina in rapporio all'antro- pologia, alia psichiatria, alia pedagogia ed alia sociologia. Per ANTONIO MARRO. Torino: Fratelli Bocca editori, 1898. Pp. 507.

THE author is already well known in the field of psychiatry and criminology by important works. He has been trained for this special investigation by his education and experience as a general physician, a medical officer in a prison and an asylum for the insane, and by his position as docent in the university.

Much of this work must be left to medical men, and especially to alienists, for criticism. The early chapters are devoted to the normal physiology of adolescence, and to the important physical and psychical phenomena of this crisis period. The fifth chapter gives an account of the abnormal phenomena in degenerates. The appearance of insanity at this crisis is next studied, and then the effects of surgical operations. Three chapters are given to etiology of degeneracy ; four chapters to hygienic treatment, and the other divisions discuss educa- tional, prophylactic, and social measures for prevention or mitigation of evils.

Among the causes of morbid developments at puberty the author names the alcoholic habit of parents. Temperance reformers will find fresh ammunition in these pages. Statistical proofs are given of the injurious effects in offspring of the marriages of persons of advanced years.

The author counts among the most valuable means of health for adolescents careful physical training, nutritious food, abstinence from stimulants and narcotics, and plenty of outdoor exercise. He has confidence in the regulative power of music. The bicycle merchant can well afford to republish his praises of the wheel, and reckless