Practical Histology and Pathology. By HENEAGE GIBBES, M.D. Third Edition. London: H. K. Lewis.

WE welcome a third edition of this little volume, in which the author, who thoroughly understands his subject, deals with it, as before, in a masterly manner, and gives his readers the benefit of his ever-growing experience in this form of practical work. Those methods only are advanced, and we may particularly refer to "multiple staining," which have been by himself, and from often repeated trials, found deserving of record. The whole book has undergone complete revision; every part of it is well worthy of careful study, and but few workers in this direction can, in our opinion, well afford to be without it.

School Hygiene and the Diseases incidental to School Life. By ROBERT FARQUHARSON, M.P., M.D., LL.D., etc. London: Smith, Elder, & Co: 1885.

DR FARQUHARSON's work appears opportunely after the recent discussion on over-pressure in schools. It is a pleasant and very readable volume of some 360 pp., printed, as all educational works ought to be, in excellently clear type. The subject of School Hygiene is treated under six heads,-Buildings, Diet, Work, Play, Duties of the School Doctor, and School Diseases. The work throughout, but especially the first chapter of it, appears to be written with particular reference to such public schools as Rugby, Marlborough, Fettes, etc., but governors of smaller institutions, members of school boards, schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, will find in it information that will be of much value to them. In discussing the arrangement of buildings for large public and private schools, the author gives his preference to the separate grouping of masters' houses round the large central schoolhouse, instead of the hostel system which assembles all the boys under one roof. This has not only the advantage that the boys under each master can be treated more as members of one family, and thus have more individual supervision, but that if an epidemic should unfortunately break out, isolation can be more readily effected than if they are all crowded together under one building. The hygiene of the dormitories and the schoolroom itself is enlarged upon, and the parts which badly arranged light and ill constructed seats play in the causation of myopia, spinal curvature, and other affections, pointed out. The chapter on School Diet gives an opportunity for the exposure of those curious fads of trainers which boys think it necessary to subject themselves to when preparing for some athletic contest. Under School Work special reference is made to Sir James Crichton Browne's Report

on Educational Over-pressure. Dr Farquharson, while agreeing with much that Sir James has said, is evidently of opinion that it is only in unhealthy and underfed children that such evil results as were depicted are seen. The chapter on School Diseases is one of the best in the book so far as it goes. It contains special contributions by Dr Broadbent, Mr Edmund Owen, and Mr Brudenell Carter. It may be well to point out that the Nelson's apparatus, so highly recommended by Dr Dukes, has not proved so satisfactory in other quarters as his enthusiastic testimonial would indicate. The absence of an index is a blemish that we shall hope to see remedied in a future edition.

Insanity: Modern Views as to its Nature and Treatment; a Portion of the Morison Lectures on Insanity delivered in 1879. By W. T. GAIRDNER, M.D., LL.D., Professor of Medicine in the University of Glasgow. Glasgow: MacLehose: 1885.

THIS pamphlet is noteworthy as being the last of the Morison Lectures on Insanity in which the lecturer actually did treat of insanity, instead of some other subject with which he was better acquainted. In addition to the address, which only occupies eighteen pages, we have an appendix of notes which fill about thirty more. The address is in every way worthy of its distinguished author, and we have found the notes interesting reading. The first is "On the Early Training and Mental History of John Stuart Mill, considered in reference to some peculiarities in his Writings." This is followed by a critique on "The Subjection of Women." After a very able fashion Dr Gairdner shows the false and superficial character of this work, whose evil effects have not yet passed away.

The third note is on "Witchcraft and Demoniacal Possession, in the course of which Dr Gairdner gives, from his own observation, a description of "a modern witch medically investigated," i.e., a woman affected with symptoms which would most likely have caused her to be burned for a witch had she lived in our country in the beginning of the 17th century. She was an ungainly looking creature, with a wry neck and a habitual tremor. Her ways were unsociable, and she described herself as not being able to feel anything as she ought to do, which made her tired of life.

La Morphinomanie. By B. BALL. Pp. 166. Paris, 1885.

THE principal paper in this little book treats of Morphinomania. Dr Ball tells us that this vice is to-day so much diffused in Western Europe and in France, that it has seemed to him useful to republish the lectures which he had already delivered in the Clinique

of the Medical School of Paris, in a form accessible "au grand public." Any medical practitioner who has been called in as adviser in one of these most distressing and discouraging cases, will obtain a clear and comprehensive view of the nature of the malady, and the resources of the healing art, by reading Dr Ball's little treatise. Morphinomania, he tells us, exists when the individual feels an irresistible desire to take morphia; and as dipsomania leads to alcoholism, so morphinomania inevitably leads to morphinism, that is, the morbid condition resulting from the continued use of opium or its compounds. Dipsomania is an intermittent neurosis. The craving for drink does not always exist in the mind of the dipsomaniac, and his disease is absolutely incurable, like most of the neuroses in which the crisis returns by fits. Morphinomania, on the contrary, is a continuous neurosis. Its victim feels a perpetual craving for his stimulant, but it is a curable malady which has often been cured. Thus drunkards who get intoxicated every day may be cured of their morbid cravings; dipsomaniacs, never.

Dr Ball recalls the famous soliloquy of Hamlet, where the prince asks, Were it not for the fear of something after death, who would bear the evils of life when he could make his quietus with a bare bodkin? This bare bodkin of which Shakspeare speaks, which has to free us from our misery, is the subcutaneous injection syringe. With one puncture we can assuage the sufferings of the body and of the mind, feel beyond the injustice of men and the slights of fortune, and pass into the pleasant dreamland of opium. This explains the irresistible attractions of the drug.

In three lectures, filling 70 pages, Dr Ball gives us a complete account of the characteristics of morphinomania, the effects of abstinence from morphia, and the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment.

The fourth lecture is on "The Frontiers of Insanity;" the fifth on "Cerebral Dualism," the curious subject which was treated of by Dr Wigan in his book on the Duality of the Mind. The remaining lectures are "On Prolonged Dreams," and on "Insanity Occurring in Twins." While the lectures on morphinomania form a serious medical treatise, the other essays are written in a style which ought to interest intelligent readers of all classes. The cases cited by Dr Ball are well chosen, and are related with amusing point and vivacity. To no living writer is morbid psychology more indebted than to the Professor of Mental Diseases in the University of Paris, who is also the editor of the Encéphale. While we grant that the French School is second to none in the study of insanity, we fancy that Britain can claim some reflected credit in our author, to judge from his name and the perfect manner in which he was heard to use our language at the International Medical Congress in London, and the Centenary meeting at Edinburgh. At any rate it may be justly said that Dr Ball unites French epigrammatic force with English thoroughness and cosmopolitan learning.

Materia Medica, Physiological and Applied. Vol. I. London: Trübner & Co.: 1884.

THIS is a book of 726 pages, and is only the first volume of the Materia Medica. There is no indication given of the number of volumes to follow; but if the Materia Medica be at all comprehensive, and the succeeding volumes as large, it will be indeed a most ponderous work. This volume only treats of six substances: two inorganic, Kali bichromicum and Plumbum; three vegetable substances, Aconitum, Digitalis, and Nux vomica; and one animal substance, Crotalus, the poison of the rattlesnake.

The treatise on Aconitum is by R. E. Dudgeon, M.D.; on Digitalis, Nux vomica, and Plumbum, by the late F. Black, M.D.; on Kali bichromicum, by J. J. Drysdale, M.D.; and on Crotalus, by J. W. Hayward, M.D. The preface is signed by Drs Drysdale, Dudgeon, Hayward, and Hughes. In a somewhat lengthy preface they discuss the general action of medicines from their own standpoint as homœopathists. In their first sentence they state as an axiom, that "all drugs must act therapeutically only by virtue of their physiological action on the healthy body," a statement which has never been proved, and one which is known not to be correct. The action of a drug in health and disease is not necessarily the same. It would serve no purpose here to enter on a review of the peculiar tenets of homoeopathists. Suffice it to say, the present volume shows great research on the part of its authors; but they lack sadly the power of digesting their material and putting it within proper limits. When we remember that the present volume of 726 pages only treats of six substances, it must be self-evident that few will ever read through, far less digest, all that is likely to be written.

If any one will take the trouble to read the article on Crotalus by Dr Hayward, he will be astonished to find how many diseases may be cured by it; in fact, it seems a kind of panacea for all the ills to which flesh is heir. It is recommended for delirium tremens, mania, paraphasia, general paralysis of the insane, vertigo, vomiting, convulsions, headache, meningitis, apoplexy, ophthalmia, hæmorrhages, glaucoma, deafness, frostbite, erysipelas, acne, mumps, cancrum oris, cancer of tongue, diphtheria, gangrene, cancer, dyspepsia, peritonitis, jaundice, bubo, diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, after-pains, suppression of urine, "affections of the urinary and sexual organs," asthma, cough, varicose veins, palpitation, carbuncles, boils, compound fractures, cramps, gonorrhoeal rheumatism, chilblains, psoriasis, ulcers, syphilis, whitlow, lupus, burns and scalds, "disorders of sleep," fevers, variola, scarlatina, glanders, chorea, dropsy, etc., etc. These are some, and only some, of the many diseases for which Crotalus is recommended. A treatise which can recommend one single medicine for such a variety of diseases is not likely to become a general favourite with the profession.

Burr's Medical Index. Manufactured by the BURR INDEX COMPANY, Hartford, Conn.

MESSRS MACLACHLAN & STEWART, the Edinburgh agents, have sent us a copy of this Index, which is specially adapted to the use of physicians and surgeons who desire to preserve memoranda of their reading, or of observations made in the course of practice. Most medical men who seek to keep themselves abreast of the daily increasing professional knowledge find a common-place book of some kind a real necessity. The book before us supplies this need better than anything of the kind we have seen. It is a strongly half-bound quarto volume, the pages of which are divided into two columns-a smaller to the left hand side for the name or subject, and a larger for the note or reference. The pages are indexed by means of projecting tabs stamped on both sides with the letters of the alphabet, and further by aid of thumb-hole cuts in which are printed, also in alphabetical order, the first two letters of the word to be entered in the name or subject column. Thus, to enter or to find a note regarding Pneumonia, the reader would throw the book open at the page from which the tab stamped P projects. In one of the thumb-holes before him he would then find the letters PN, which guide him at once to the page on which to enter or find the desired note, the word "Pneumonia being placed under the initial letters PN (which are printed in the small column as well as in the thumb-hole), and the note being opposite it in the larger column. The spacing has been, we are told, a piece of arduous work, "requiring long, specific, and accurate study and calculation-no idle guess work." For example, the scrutiny of a number of physicians' note-books has shown that there is required "five times as much spacing or blank leaves under the subjectinitial letters, Ab, Ca, In, Ov, Sy, Ut, as under some other letters." Such a book will, we doubt not, prove a very great convenience, and ought to become popular.

Part Third.

MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES.

MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH,

SESSION LXV.-MEETING III.

Wednesday, 2nd December 1885.-Prof. GRAINGER STEWART, President, in the

Chair.

I. ELECTION OF ORDINARY MEMBERS.

The following gentlemen were elected Ordinary Members of the Society: Robert W. Felkin, L.R.C.P. & S. Ed., F.R.S.E.; S. Hall