on the 31st July, 1866, advocates pavilion asylums, on account of what he believes, and, so far as we can judge, justly, to be their superior advantages, viz., economy of construction, facility of enlargement, separation of the several departments, and efficiency as regards communication, ventilation, and quietude.

With much propriety he makes provision in his plan for baths of different kinds, of which in all our hospitals, compared with the continental, there is so great a deficiency; and we are glad to see that in adverting to this he does not omit the hot-air or Roman bath, of the therapeutic agency of which he has witnessed good effects in cases under his own care at Hayward's Heath.

ART. VIII. - Medicinskt Archiv, utgifvet af Lärarne vid Carolinska Institutet i Stockholm. Redigeradt af E. A. KEY, Professor i Pathol. Anatomi; C. J. ROSSANDER, E. O., Professor i Chirurgi; A. KJELLBERG, Adjunct i Pædiatrik. Tredje Bandet, Andra Häftet. Stockholm. Samson and Wallin, 1867.

Archives of Medicine, published by the Teachers in the Carolinean Institute in Stockholm. Edited by E. A. KEY, Professor of Pathological Anatomy; C. J. ROSSANDER, Professor Extraordinary of Surgery; and A. KJELLBERG, Adjunct in Pædiatrics. Third volume, second part.

THE present number of the 'Swedish Archives of Medicine' contains four papers: the first, of eighteen pages, by Professor E. Axel Key, on the diffusion of trichinæ in Sweden, to be followed in the next number by one in answer to the question: "Whence does the pig derive trichina?" the second, by K. Kjerner, of thirty-eight pages, on vaccinal syphilis; the third, by A. Wimmerstedt, of twenty-eight pages, a chemical examination of the mineral waters of Medevi, the oldest medicinal springs in Sweden; and the fourth, by E. W. Wretlind, of 156 pages, investigations respecting the mortality of Stockholm. In addition, part of a report on the instruction in the Carolinean Medico-Chirurgical Institute is given in an appendix. From M. Wretlind's paper it would appear that the mortality in Stockholm is very great, varying during the last fifty years between 3.42 and 4.54 per cent., while in the other towns in the kingdom it has ranged from 2.27 to 2.98 per cent., and in the country between 1.89 and 2.27 per cent.; "Stockholm has thus had a mortality about double that of the country,

and one third greater than that of the other towns of Sweden." Of the fourteen years, 1851-1861, only in 1859, 1860, 1861, 1863, and 1864, did the births in Stockholm exceed the deaths. Compared with other capitals, too, Stockholm appears to nearly as great disadvantage. Of twenty enumerated by the author, "the majority of which are much larger than Stockholm, we find only Florence, whence the report, moreover, refers to only one year, having a higher per-centage mortality than our metropolis." The author concludes his very valuable and elaborate essay in the following terms:

"The investigations now carried out respecting the causes of disease in Stockholm seem to justify the following statement:

"That the climatic conditions cannot be regarded as in any essential degree contributing to the great mortality, although the spring weather is unfavorable, and assists in producing or aggravating catarrhal diseases, especially in the lungs;

"That among the local conditions a very injurious influence must be ascribed to the soil being in many places, through defective drainage, highly marshy, causing damp in the houses, and thus contributing to produce catarrhs, rheumatism, tubercles, scrofula, and rickets; that the products of putrefaction, which partly in the gaseous form are developed from this soil, and partly enter in solution into the spring water, have an especially pernicious effect by giving rise to or aggravating nervous fevers, diarrhoea, and similar diseases;

"That it is, however, in the social conditions that the principal causes of the great mortality of Stockholm must be sought, among which, in men, vice, exhibiting itself in drunkenness and unchastity; among women, insufficient remuneration for work and consequent privations, especially with respect to food; and among children, particularly the illegitimate, insufficient care or injudicious management, must be placed in the first rank; that the poverty produced partly by the above-named vices, and partly by other causes, in connection with miserable and unhealthy dwellings, must also have a very great effect; and that, moreover, intemperance and a dissipated tone of society amongst the more wealthy, as well as insufficient and defective care of the sick and of children, depending on the corporation, must be looked upon as important co-operative causes."

ART. IX.-Lectures on Animal Chemistry, delivered at the Royal College of Physicians. By W. ODLING, M.B., F.R.S., &c., &c. Pp. viii, 165. London: Longmans, Green, & Co. 1866.

THIS little work is a commendable effort to point out the explanations which modern chemistry offers as to the functions.

and processes of animal life. Professor Odling, commencing with the types on which compounds are constructed, shows how various organic bodies are mutually related, and how the recognition of the replacement, in certain apparently complex substances, of an element by a compound group, simplifies our view of their constitution. This simplification becomes still more striking where, as in so many instances, we can actually artificially build up from the elements bodies before known only as organic products. This process is generally performed in accordance with the inferences drawn from our insight into the internal groupings and structures of the bodies in question. Very happy are Dr. Odling's illustrations of the internal structure of hippuric acid, salicine, urea, and other important animal and vegetable products. He clearly shows that these and other complex organic bodies are built up of what we may call the "residues" of comparatively simple molecules, and that they may be referred to definite positions in such related series or groups of substances as those of the aromatic and fatty acids, of the alcohols or aldehydes, &c. The first two lectures of our author are occupied with these and kindred subjects; in his third lecture the relations of animal to vegetable functions are more particularly discussed, the general oxidation attendant upon the former being contrasted with the deoxidation effected by the latter. The spendthrift character of animal nutrition, in which the complex products elaborated by plants from very simple mineral bodies, are again more or less broken up, is dwelt upon with still greater detail in Dr. Odling's fourth lecture. Here we are told of the circulation of matter from the mineral to the vegetable, and through the vegetable to the animal; the animal again, in its turn, restoring during its life part of its oxidized products, namely, carbonic acid and water, to the plant; and finally after its death giving back to the earth other compounds, as phosphates, nitrates, and sulphates, just in the very form in which the elements they contain are best adapted to supply the necessities of vegetable nutrition. We get a clear notion of how the solar force is rendered latent and stored up in the separated oxygen, and in the carbonaceous tissues of plants, and how it is again liberated by the combustion of vegetable matters in air, whether in ordinary recognised processes of burning or in the processes of animal life. Thus, we see that the solar force, which is accumulated by vegetable organisms, is dissipated by those of animals. So far we follow our author in general and pretty close agreement, but when he proceeds to affirm that the hypothesis of (that which for want of another term we call the) vital force is baseless we cannot help demurring to his doctrine. We do

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this, not because of any novelty in the doctrine, nor because it presents itself to us in a disagreeable light, but simply because it is only partly supported by evidence. It is all true enough to talk about the artificial and synthetical formation of hundreds of compounds once supposed to be incapable of construction save in the organisms of plants and animals. But what we conceive to be the most distinctive feature of organic processes is never, we believe, alluded to by Professor Odling. We mean that specific directive and determinative force (shall we call it?) which makes one plant store up its nitrogen in the form of caseine, and another in that of fibrine only; which makes one plant produce the quinine group of alkaloids, another the morphine group; which causes, in fact, the endless chemical differences between different plants. For another purpose also we are compelled to admit the existence of a power which we cannot comprehend-that specific originative power of growth and increase which we discern in all animal and vegetable forms. No one will now deny that plants and animals work in strict obedience to the laws of chemistry and physics; but it is the starting of specific processes and action, and the formation of specific products in obedience to these laws, which remain at present without explanation, and seem to elude our grasp. We have spoken, indeed, of these actions as due to a specific directive force, a force which we cannot at present wield at will, but at the same time we freely confess that this expression is only a convenient way of speaking of something which we do not wholly understand, but which, at all events, we see cannot be as yet explained by any combination of the known laws of chemistry and physics.

It will be impossible to review in so brief a notice as the present, the elaborate reasoning of Professor Odling concerning the sources of heat and energy in the body. Much valuable information is condensed in Chapter V, where the nature and results of muscular metamorphosis are discussed. Our author's data and his arguments are always worthy of attentive study, even where, as in the matter of the relative importance of nitrogenous and carbonaceous food, his conclusions are not in accordance with the most recent researches.

The concluding chapter of the work is partly occupied by expansions of certain general statements previously made, and partly by practical applications of animal chemistry.

ART. X.-A Treatise on Emotional Disorders of the Sympathetic System of Nerves. By WM. MURRAY, M.D., &c. London, 1866, pp. 118.

WE hardly know how to express our opinion of this little work. The subject is obscure, as is its title, and also its treatment. Judging from the style in which it is written, we must presume that it is intended by its author rather for the general reader than for the professional. Were it designed for the latter, surely Dr. Murray would not have thought it necessary to point out the situation of the solar plexus and ganglia, with the addition that he had ascertained it, as expressed in the following passage:-"I have ascertained that the solar plexus and its ganglia lie chiefly beneath the tip of the ensiform cartilage." And what confirms us in our opinion is that, in his preface, adverting to the impositions of the charlatan, to whom "emotional disorders" open so large a field for action, he expresses the hope, in which we can hardly join, that his treatise will be the means of protecting the sufferers from these ailments from imposition, and will "direct them to a rational source of relief."

Further criticism, we think, would be superfluous.

ART. XI.-Training, in Theory and Practice. By ARCHIBALD MACLAREN. London, 1866, pp. 202.

THIS is a remarkably well got up book; and with its frontispiece, an excellent photograph of the "Oxford University Eight" in harmonious action and full sweep, can hardly be otherwise than attractive.

Such was our first impression on opening the volume. After reading it we can say more in its commendation. We have no hesitation in expressing our opinion that it is a book which any one may read with advantage-good sense, sound judgment, and much knowledge being its distinguishing features. Nor do we think we are praising it too highly in adding that the style in which it is written, so clear and simple, is worthy of its

matter.

Addressing our medical readers, who can hardly expect to find much information new to them in the author's pages, we would especially call their attention to the foot-notes, in which Mr. Maclaren gives some of the results of his own experience. For the benefit of those of our confrères who may not have