Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/143

Rh that is too often neglected or ignorantly attended to.

A paper on Faith-Healing in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, read before the American Folk-lore Society by Charles F. Cox, is intended to draw a parallel between the superstitious modes of cure and practices of the period named and the faith-cures, etc., of the present, and to show that the latter are what are called, in the theory of evolution, survivals. Illustrations are drawn from the career of Paracelsus, the weapon-salve of Robert Fludd, and the sympathetic powder of Sir Kenelm Digby. The influence of suggestion is supposed to have played a considerable part in such success as the charlatans practicing these cures may have had. The author avows the belief that cures have been, and are nowadays, effected by the methods employed by the different species of faith-healers, and explains them on the theories expounded by Dr. W. B. Carpenter, or as cases of hypnotism.

The Rules and the Application of Reichert's Hæmometer, an instrument designed to ascertain the amount of hæmoglobin in either a diseased or a normal condition of the blood, are described by Frederick Gaertner, M. D., in a paper which was read before the iron City Microscopical Society, Pittsburg.

Vol. XXIII of Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College, of which Part I is published, is devoted to the Discussion of Observations made with the Meridian Photometer during the Years 1882-1888, by Edward C. Pickering and Oliver C. Wendell. The first parts of the investigation of which the continuation is recorded have appeared in a previous volume, and a third volume will be required to contain the whole. A larger instrument than those with which the earlier observations were made, but like it, was applied in the present series to fainter stars. The observations relate principally to stars north of declination -40°. The work having been done at Cambridge, the instrument has been sent to Peru, for observation of the Southern stars. The details of this series will be published in another volume. A careful description is given of the instrument and the method of using it.

In Consumption and Liquids a theory of the prophylaxis and cure of consumption by suralimentation of liquid food is presented by W. H. Burt, M. D., of Chicago. The author believes that his remedy is not only the greatest of known prophylactics, but that it will arrest and cure pulmonary consumption; that, when used in the first and second stages of phthisis, it will enable the physician to cure more than fifty per cent of the patients that would have to die with the best methods known to medical science up to the present date; but, in the third or last stage, it will give only temporary relief. It should, however, always be combined with the best remedies known to medical science; and, with this in view, the author has added most of the practical remedies in medical literature, together with all the auxiliaries at the command of the physician. Hence his book contains chapters on the etiology and prophylaxis of the disease, the part that water occupies in the human body and its therapeutic value, fruit, and specific remedies. W. T. Keener, publisher, Chicago.

The Geological Survey of Missouri, Arthur Winslow, State Geologist, publishes in Bulletin No. 2 A Bibliography of the Geology of Missouri, compiled by F. A. Samson. The author has adopted a system of classification of books and papers into those which are products of individual investigation—with entire or with partial reference to Missouri; compilations from publications of original investigation; and incidental or dependent publications. To the first class belong reports of geological surveys, of the State Board of Internal Improvements, the Bureau of Statistics, the Smithsonian Institution, university and agricultural reports, etc., 472 titles; to the second class, compilations from those made for different offices and institutions and for various purposes, 162 titles; and to the third class, occurring in many ways and places, 167 titles. Of the publications of the State of Missouri there are 144 titles; of the United States Government, 65 titles; of other State surveys, 13 titles; and of miscellaneous publications, 579 titles. The dates of publication of these papers, by decades, show a regularly increasing interest in the subject. Bulletin No. 3 of the same office contains papers on the Clay, Stone, Lime, and Sand Industries of St. Louis City and County, by G. E. Ladd; and