Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/284

272 will rather pay more for advice how to live and for frank declarations that they do not need medicine than for drugs. It promotes general reliance upon those processes which go on equally in health and disease. But these ethereal practitioners have no new force to offer; there is no causal connection between their cures and their theories.&hellip;Recoveries as remarkable have been occurring through all the ages as the results of mental states and Nature's own powers."

appearance of the twelfth edition of this dictionary, with revisions and additions, which include even the terms used in the very modern science of bacteriology and bring the book fully up to date, places a useful work at the disposal of physicians and students. It is, of course, not exhaustive; but it contains descriptions of all the ordinary terms relating to medicine, and these, although necessarily brief, are full enough for all practical purposes. Under the head of poisons, eight or nine pages are devoted to a classification of the commoner ones, in which the symptoms and most approved methods of treatment are given.

Its small size and good print make the contents of the volume readily accessible, and the names on the title-page are sufficient guarantees of accuracy.

the recent attempts to regulate the conferring of medical degrees by means of State legislation has come a tendency in the more prosperous medical schools to make their curriculums even more extended than the law requires. One of the most important innovations in this line has been the incorporation into the regular courses of a system of laboratory work, by means of which each student is given facilities for the actual chemical and microscopic study of the proximate principles, the elements entering into the composition of the human body and its secretions, and the reactions and histological characteristics produced by various pathological conditions, which are of value in diagnosis. The study of these subjects, in a practical way, has until quite recently been confined, in this country at any rate, to a few physiologists and post-graduate workers, so that an elementary text-book suited to less practiced students became a necessity. Mr. Pellew's book was designed to fill this need. Its treatment of the subject is neither original nor exhaustive, but it is very well adapted to the use of elementary students. It is printed on heavy paper, and contains several well-prepared plates and numerous line drawings.

magnificent work describes the collections made by Mr. F. S. A. de Clercq in New Guinea in the years 1887 and 1888, which are now in the Royal Ethnographic Museum at Leyden, Holland. The descriptive portion of the work is mainly by Dr. J. D. E. Schmeltz, conservator of the museum. The book is a model of its kind. It is furnished with a full list of all authorities quoted, a list of all places mentioned, an excellent map, and admirable indices—all necessary, but, unfortunately, often omitted in ethnographic writings.

The main portion of the work is divided into three parts. In the first we have a description of each object—size, form, material, details, and provenance—with references to passages in any author where similar objects have been described or illustrated. Where necessary for comparison or illustration, sketches are introduced into the text. The objects described are divided into five groups: a, dress and adornment; b, houses and domestic utensils; c, objects used in trade, fishing, etc.; d, weapons; e, objects used on festal occasions, ceremonies, etc. The plates, more than forty in number and mostly colored, represent the objects