The Jnew Local Anesthetic: Hydrochlorate Op Cocaine (muriate Op Cocaine), And Etherization By The Eectum. By Laurence Turnbull, M.D. Illustrated. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co., 1885. pp. 74. Price, paper, 50 cents.

This pamphlet, prepared as an appendix to Dr. Turnbull's Manual of Anesthetics, is intended to present all that is known of the new local anesthetic up to the present time,—its history, preparation, and medical, surgical, and dental uses; its influence on man, etc. An addition of eighteen pages is devoted to a history of etherization by the rectum, with a list of the cases, so far as known, in which that method of producing insensibility has been resorted to.

One Hundred Years Of Publishing. 1785-1885. Philadelphia;

Lea Brothers & Co., 1885.

This is a neat little memorial volume commemorative of a century's existence of the business of the firm whose imprint it bears. The house was founded by Mathew Carey in 1785. At its inception, and for a long period, the business was devoted to issuing periodical publications and miscellaneous literature. The house has been styled at succeeding epochs, Carey & Lea, Lea & Blanchard, Henry C. Lea, Henry C. Lea's Son & Co., and now Lea Brothers & Co. The business has for many years been confined exclusively to medical publishing. The reputation of the house justifies the statement that "it has ever entertained a high sense of respect for its own imprint, and has felt a just pride in the belief that its name on a title-page was in some sort an indication of the worthiness of the volume in which it appeared."

Smith's Diagram Of Parliamentary Eules, together with Key Containing Concise Hints and Directions for Conducting the Business of Deliberative Assemblies. By Uriah Smith. Second edition, revised, pp. 34. Battle Creek, Mich.: Eeview and Herald Publishing Association, 1883. Price, cloth, 50 cents. A very convenient and concise diagram and manual of hints and directions for conducting the business of deliberative bodies, which will be found useful for members and officers of such organizations. It contains much needed information condensed into a

small compass.

Pamphlets Eeceived.

A Method of Treating Fractures of the Inferior Maxilla. By Waiter Campbell, L.D.S., Eng., Dundee. Eead at the annual meeting of the association, August 29, and reprinted from the "Journal of the British Dental Association" for November, 1884. London: John Bale & Sons, 1884.

Dental Jurisprudence. By Eiehard Grady, D.D.S. Eead before the Maryland and District of Columbia Dental Association, at the meeting in Baltimore, October, 1883, and reprinted from the "American Journal of Dental Science" for January, 1884.

Outlines of Vegetable Histology. By Mrs. Wm. Streeter, President Section of Botany, E.A.S. Eochester, N. Y.: Davis & Leyden. Price, 50 cents.

Nozioni Intorno Alia Carie Dentale e sua Cura per Uso Degii Allievi Dentisti. Di Luigi Eibolla-JSTicodemi, Docente di Odontoiatria, Membro dell' Institute Odontologico di Francia, etc. Con figure Intercalate nel testo. Palermo, 1884.

Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Education, ISTo. 6, 1884: "Rural Schools—Progress in the Past; Means of Improvement in the Future." Washington: Government Printing Office,

1884.

Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education: "Building for the Children in the South, by Rev. A. D. Mayo." Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Education, Ho. 7, 1884: "Aims and Methods of the Teaching of Physics, by Professor Charles K. Wead, A.M., of the University of Michigan." Washington: Government Printing Office, 1884.

OBITUARY.

WILLIAM MABGETSOH, L.D.S., ENG. Died, January 29, 1885, at his private residence, Cliffe Terrace, Horbury, in his fifty-seventh year, William Margetson, L.D.S., *Eng., of Eoscoe House, Dewsbury, Yorkshire, England.

WILLIAM BEAITHWAITE, M.D.

The well-known English physician and surgeon, William BraithWaite, the founder of The Retrospect of Medicine, died at his home in Leeds, England, January 31, 1885, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.

The publication of the Retrospect will be continued by his son, Dr. James Bi*aithwaite, whose name has appeared on its title-page connectedly with his distinguished father's for a quarter of a century.

PERISCOPE.

Physical Culture.—The common neglect of physical culture, not alone by students but by professional men generally, is the manifest cause of much of the dyspepsia, headache, biliousness, and other derangements of health which are usually ascribed to almost any other than their true origin. Comparatively few men—in professional life especially—utilize their " off" hours intelligently with reference to the nature of their daily duties, and the compensating character of the exercise demanded, in order to maintain both body and mind in normal condition. To no class of men, perhaps, does this statement apply with greater force than to dentists. No apology is needed, therefore, for occupying space in the Periscopic department of the current number for the terse but comprehensive presentation of this subject in an extract from the address by Dr. J. Wm. White at the inauguration of the new department of Physical Edu-' cation, of which he has been elected director, in the University of Pennsylvania. We commend the lessons there taught to the present and prospective practitioners of dentistry as in the highest degree worthy of their attention and observance. It cannot be urged that this topic is not relevant; so far as the health, comfort, length of life, and that equable mental condition essential to the best work are concerned, there is none more so.

In ordinary parlance "education" is understood to mean simply acqirement of knowledge, or, in a somewhat broader sense, the development and strengthening, i. e., the training, of the mind. The young man who is sent to college to "get an education" is sent there to go through a prescribed course of study, the result aimed at being either a certain amount of general culture or such special knowledge as shall fit him for the profession or business to which he proposes to devote his life. Until very recently this was the only idea which actuated parents or guardians, and was the only principle recognized by the managers or governors of educational institutions. Occasionally some unusually careful father would say, "See that my boy gets fresh air enough," or see that he doesn't "overwork himself;" occasionally faculties or trustees would interfere spasmodically with the athletics of the student, or as spasmodically encourage one game or sport to the exclusion of others. But there was no pretence, no thought even, of carrying on simultaneously with the education of the mind an education of the body, which should result in leaving the student at the end of his term of stud}^ better fitted physically as well as mentally to take his share of the troubles and hard knocks of the world and fight his way to success.

As time went on, however, and physiological science grew ; as the mutual inter-dependence of mind and body was recognized; as the instances multiplied of the pale, sickly, narrow-chested valedictorian or first-honor man, admirably equipped for his life-work with everything but health and strength, but, lacking them, easily distanced by less intellectual but more evenly developed competitors, or compelled to drop out of the race altogether, to dawdle through life as an invalid, or to die at middle-age; as such cases multiplied, I say, more and more attention began to be paid to the demands of the body, and more thought to the systematic satisfying of its requirements, until these questions have now become as important as any which are submitted to teachers or trustees.

We know as well as we know anything that in every occupation, calling or profession in which a man can be engaged, in every position in life which he can occupy, a fairly developed frame is not only of advantage to him, but is almost essential to success. We know with the same certainty that, ^ceteris paribus, the man who possesses health and strength is not only able to do better work than his rival who lacks those attributes, but he will do it more easily and pleasantly, with the greatest amount of comfort to himself and usefulness to his fellow men. Admitting this, then, we may ask what is meant by the "health and strength" which are such desirable possessions, and how are they to be obtained through any system of physical education?

Health consists, in a comprehensive sense, in such a condition oi growTth and development of all the organs of the body as enables them to fulfill their functions easily and completely, respond promptly to occasional unusual demands upon them, and resist effectually the attacks of disease. It includes, therefore, in its very essence the idea of a certain amount of strength, and indeed the two terms are closely correlated, strength of the right sort and properly obtained being in the highest degree conducive to health.

In a system of physical education by which it is intended to produce these conditions certain elementary physiological facts have to be taken into consideration. The life of the body, as a whole, depends upon the life of innumerable atoms which constitute it, and which are continually dying, being cast off and replaced by others. The general health depends directly upon the activity of this process, and the perfection with which it is performed. The blood carries to every tissue or organ of the body the pabulum—the food —needed for its repair, or for its growth or development. If we lift a hand certain cells or atoms die, and are disintegrated as a consequence of that movement; new cells must be supplied to take their places; the old ones must be removed-and carried to organs whose function it is to eliminate them from the body. All this is done by the blood, which, however, in performing this work necessarily becomes loaded with effete and useless material, much of which, in the shape of carbonic acid, is thrown off by the lungs. Seducing the statement to the simplest possible terms, we may say that the health and strength of any individual are in direct proportion to the thoroughness and celerity with which these cells or atoms are removed and replaced, and that, consequently, anything which promotes at the same time the destruction of the old cells and their rapid replacement by new ones is a valuable and beneficial agent. When we look for such an agent, throwing aside drugs as inapplicable and injurious, and recognizing food as the fuel which may be transformed into force, but which is useless alone or unassisted, we find that there is but one means within our reach for safely and continuously and healthfully stimulating these processes into increased activity, and that means is exercise, probably the most useful, as it is the most neglected, of the hygienic and therapeutic forces.

Exercise, which may be defined as muscular contraction, acts in a manner readily understood. All movements of living beings are made by such contraction, i. e., by the shortening of certain muscles. If you open your mouth, if you place one foot in advance of another, if you raise a finger, you do it in each case because a certain muscle or group of muscles in response to the stimulus of your will has shortened itself. This is true of all voluntary movements. Another set of muscles, of which the heart is the most notable example, contract in response to other stimuli and are not controlled by the will. In the case of the heart the stimulus is the presence of the blood itself, and particularly of the venous blood, or that which is brought back from the tissues loaded with carbonic acid.

As soon as any act of exercise is begun a number of the voluntary muscles are put into action; their contraction compresses the blood vessels and impels the venous blood actively toward the heart, which, thus spurred, contracts vigorously and sends the blood in large quantities to the lungs. Then the inspiratory muscles contract and lift the bony frame of the chest, making it larger both laterally and antero-posteriorly; the diaphragm pushes down the contents of the abdomen, and air rushes into the chest to fill the space thus produced, and supplies the oxygen needed for the purification of the blood. This is then returned to the heart to be distributed anew throughout the system, carrying with it the materials needed to supply the waste caused by the muscular movement originally made. These materials are often deposited in larger quantities than are required to counterbalance the destruction which has taken place, and then we have the muscle growing in size or in hardness, or both. The involuntary muscles also, including the heart and diaphragm, grow stronger in the same manner, the pulsations of the heart during exercise becoming more forcible, but at the same time slower and less obtrusive, showing that it does its work more easily; the increased activity of the circulation carries the blood in larger volume not only to the muscles but also to all the organs of the body, and thus stimulates them to greater activity, strengthening the appetite, the digestion, and the nutritive powers, and causing a gain in weight; the lungs themselves expand more fully and completely, and take in an increased quantity of air, this improved condition being known among professional athletes as the acquirement of " wind;" the larger amount of blood sent to the skin results in an increase in the quantity of perspiration, which carries with it much of the worn-out and useless or noxious material of the system, and thus adds to the resistive power of the economy against evil influences from without, such as bad air from ill-ventilated rooms or dirty streets ; the bony framework of the chest, though elastic, does not go quite back to its original dimensions, but increasing, a little at a time, soon becomes noticeably augmented in size, giving additional room for the important organs which it contains and protects. In other words, as the most obvious but least useful effect of exer