Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/944

854 object of this book is to give an idea of the way in which certain elements of our weather and the mortality from some well-known diseases have varied in recent years. The mode of exposition adopted is that of graphic cur-es. For instance, on page 57, a whooping-cough table is given which covers the period from 1837 to 1894. A curve is plotted from a careful study of the mortality statistics, thus giving a picture which accurately represents the variations of the death-rate in this disease during practically the last fifty years; this table can then be compared with a similarly constructed one, representing the variations in temperature and rainfall for the same period, and the relation between the two series made out.

The sudden rise into prominence of massage as a therapeutic agent has already caused the growth of a quite extensive literature on the subject. The last volume to reach us, The Practice of Massage, by A. Symons Eccles (Macmillan, Vs. 6d.), is in a general way a treatise on the more recent as well as the earlier contributions to our knowledge of the effects, uses, and limitations of massage, so far as they have appeared to be fairly well established by actual results. The author has besides, however, set down the record of his own personal observation and practice. The appropriate manipulations for the various diseases are given in detail, and the book is closed with a very good bibliography of the subject.

With the beginning of the new year and of its fourteenth volume, the Pharmaceutische Rundschau became the Pharmaceutical Review, and was removed to Milwaukee. It will also henceforth be printed chiefly in the English language, although articles from German contributors that would suffer by translation will continue to appear in German, and sometimes in both languages.

The embodiment of a vivid narrative and the dress of a handsomely printed and illustrated volume have been provided by John Uri Lloyd, of Cincinnati, for the philosophical reflections and scientific hypotheses that a lifetime has matured in his mind. In a preliminary statement Prof. Lloyd says that his study of the material (he ranks high among American pharmaceutical chemists) has discredited materialism for him, and the leading ideas of his book, to which he has given the anagrammatic title Etidorhpa, are that "force and spirit are neither less real than the other, and that matter is not more substantial than either," while pure and noble love is man's highest good, whether here or hereafter. The story reminds one strongly of Jules Verne. It describes a journey underground in the care of an eyeless guide, among colossal fungi, monstrous cubical crystals, hideous reptiles, and beautiful flowers, over crags and precipices and across a crystal lake, until the "end of earth" is reached. At one point Etidorhpa, with a train of other beautiful beings, comes before the pilgrim and asserts her sovereignty. The results of the author's reflections upon gravitation, matter, force, life, volcanoes, intemperance, and future life are incidentally introduced. The illustrations, by J. Augustus Knapp, deserve high praise. Prof. Lloyd has issued a limited edition of the book at a subscription price of $4.

Except a few pages occupied by administrative reports the fourth volume of the Report of the Iowa Geological Survey is devoted to descriptions of the geology of six counties—Allamakee, Linn, Van Buren, Keokuk, Mahaska, and Montgomery. The stratigraphy and economic products of each county are given with considerable fullness, and the physiography more briefly. There are good beds of coal in one or two of these counties and more or less building stone, brick clay, lime, etc., but so few deposits of metals as to afford little inducement for prospecting. The volume is handsomely printed and contains illustrations and county maps.

We have received a copy of the second edition of Prof. Sadtler's Handbook of Industrial Organic Chemistry (Lippincott, $5), the first edition of which we noticed in our January issue for 1892. "The fact that a large edition of the book has been exhausted in about three years and a half, and that it has been temporarily out of print, leads me to think," says the author, "that the plan of treatment adopted was an acceptable one, and that such a book was needed." In the present edition the bibliography has been rewritten and brought carefully up to date. While the body of the text has not been altered, numerous corrections have been made.