Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/584

566 "disease is the result of violated law, a wrong done to Nature, and whether we are responsible for it or not, the fact remains still potent for our consideration of the greatest of all problems, that the sick man is a sinner against Nature, and that he will have to pay the penalty to the last farthing, both for his own and his ancestors' misconduct." Among special chapter headings we find the following: Why We are Sick; The Tension caused by Worry; Athletics; Self-Control; Breathing as a Means of Health; A Plea for the Baby; The Reduction of Fat; and Pain. A number of special exercises are described and pictured.

The Induction Coil in Practical Work, by Lewis Wright (Macmillan, $1.25), was written, says the author, simply and solely as a practical help to the efficient and safe use of an induction coil, with some special reference to the revived and extensive use of that apparatus in surgical and physiological work with Röntgen rays. This new field of experiment has brought many into personal contact with coils who have never had any acquaintance with such instruments before, and it is thought that some will like to have a convenient outline of the many other impressive and beautiful experiments in which the induction coil bears a part. There are eight chapters which, starting with a general consideration of electrical induction, go on to a special consideration of the structure of the induction coil, its manipulation and care, the discharges in partial and high vacua, and finally spectrum work and X rays, which seem to cover the ground fairly well in an elementary way. There are numerous diagrams and several well executed plates.

We have recently received a reprint from the eighth annual report of the Missouri Botanical Garden, entitled Botanical Observations on the Azores. Mr. William Trelease, the author, seems to have done an immense amount of work in the time which he was able to give his subject—two short leaves of absence in the summers of 1894 and 1896. The volume consists mainly of a catalogue of plants, which is followed by a very instructive series of plates.

The third annual report of the Lake Mohonk Conference on International ArbitraionArbitration [sic] consists chiefly of the addresses delivered at the meeting which opened on June 2, 1897. Among the speakers were the Hon. George F. Edmunds, Rev. E. E. Hale, President Dreher, Hon. E. P. Wheeler, Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, Hon. George F. Seward, Colonel George E. Waring, Jr., Prof. U. P. Gilman, and General James Grant Wilson. The platform adopted by the meeting deplores the failure of the recent treaty between Great Britain and the United States, but rejoices at the rapid popular growth of the arbitration idea, and looks forward to the establishment in the near future of an Arbitration Commission, to which all international disputes shall be submitted.

Students of Hebrew literature and customs will be interested in the pamphlet containing tracts Shekalim and Rosh Hashana of The Babylonian Talmud, original text and English translation, with notes and explanations, by Michael L. RodkinsenRodkinson [sic]. The notes seem to be ample and satisfactory, and a great relief from the technicalities and obscurities of the text. Published in New York, 54 East 106th Street, by the New Talmud Publishing Company.

Mr. Maximilian P. E. Groszman's Working System of Child Study for Schools (Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bardeen, 50 cents) is, as its title indicates, a manual of suggestions as to the method in which the study may be conducted. The author perceives that a systematic method of child study is beginning to be evolved, and shows his appreciation of the matter by declaring that the new pedagogy must be based upon it; but we must not wait until the results of all the researches have been collected, for that would be to wait a long time. There is enough material already on hand for the new education to begin at once. The author has a great advantage in that he is able to present his suggestions in the light of his experience in the New York schools of ethical culture and of the working of the methods pursued there. His precepts are re-enforced by the citation of cases which have been studied there.

"The Philosophy of the Undeniable" is the catching phrase by which Mr. Dwight H. Olmstead designates the doctrines contained in a booklet just issued by him (G. P. Putnam's Sons) under the title The