altogether although the epidemic was raging in the towns in which they were situated; and in those cases where the disease did occur in prisons, the prisoners suffered much less than the attendants whose intercourse with the town was freer. The same is true of the inhabitants of poorhouses and convents.

The question as to whether infection can be spread by fomites is left undecided. There are many cases recorded which appear to show that this is possible, but none of them are absolutely conclusive.

Great difficulties are experienced in fixing the incubation period of influenza; but many well-observed cases are reported which would seem to prove that this may be very short-under twentyfour hours.

The general opinion of veterinary surgeons is that, although epidemic diseases resembling influenza occur in horses, dogs, and cats, yet that their causation is different to that of human influenza, and that the disease is not communicable from men to animals or from animals to men. There are, however, others who hold the contrary opinion, and believe that the diseases are identical in men and animals, and transmissible from one to the other.

Finally, the author advocates strongly that influenza should, by Act of Parliament, be placed among the infectious diseases for which notification is compulsory.

Clinical Manual for the Study of Medical Cases. Edited by JAMES FINLAYSON, M.D., Physician and Lecturer on Clinical Medicine in the Glasgow Western Infirmary; Physician to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow, &c. Third Edition. London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 1891. Pp. 719.

WE welcome with much pleasure the Third Edition of Dr. Finlayson's Manual. It is, so to speak, the converse of ordinary textbooks of medicine, treating, as it does, of the same subjects, but approaching them from the opposite point of view. In books on Practice of Medicine the contents are classified and divided according to the various diseases described. In the Clinical Manual, the different systems and organs of the body are taken as the groundwork, and their condition and functions in health and disease are discussed and explained at length. In a text-book of medicine the student finds an account, say, of bronchitis, with all its signs and symptoms. In the Clinical Manual he reads about the characters

of breathing, normal and abnormal, the varieties of cough, the characters of sputum, and the modes of making a microscopic examination of it, of the methods of making a physical examination of the thoracic organs, pulse, urine, &c., &c.

Many matters, too, which are not very fully described in books on medicine, are here fully discussed; there are a number of useful tables showing the average weight and height of children of different ages; there is a chapter on Electrical Instruments in Diagnosis, in which will be found an account of the various kinds of electrical batteries and their appropriate uses; an account is given of the Physiognomy of Disease; and many hints are given which the student will find useful in examining cases.

We consider that the Manual fulfils admirably the author's design-viz., " to aid students in the actual study of their cases, by supplying details of the methods followed in clinical work, along with indications of the significance to be attached to various symptoms." No student, and, we may add, no practitioner who desires to set about his work in a thorough and scientific manner will reg.ct having purchased this volume.

MEDICAL DIARIES AND VISITING LISTS FOR 1892. 1. The A.B.C. Medical Diary and Visiting List. 1892. London: Charles Letts & Co., and Burroughs, Wellcome, & Co.

2. Letts's Medical Diary for the Year 1892. London: Cassell & Company.

1. MESSRS. BURROUGHS, WELLCOME, & Co., have just published their A.B.C. Medical Diary and Visiting List for 1892, which is very similar to the diary issued by that firm for many years past. Columns have been added to the weekly diary, in which the fees due by each patient can be inserted. It is claimed for this addition that it is "important," as enabling the medical practitioner to state at once the amount due and receive payment. To us this addition seems to be of doubtful taste, but perhaps it will work better than we think.

Another improvement in the diary is the pattern of tuck now adopted. The whole of the flap is inserted in the pocket, and so cannot become torn. The edges of the book also cannot be crumpled.

This diary contains considerably less printed matter than the

edition of 1891, and so is less bulky and more portable. Forty pages of very tough but thin pap r at the beginning of this very neat pocket-book contain an immensity of valuable and wonderfully condensed information, including an index of remedies and a posological table.

2. Letts's Medical Diary is longer but narrower than the A.B.C. Diary. It is equally condensed, but contains a great deal of useful information, notwithstanding. We think the insertion of advertisements in the middle of the pages containing information is a mistake. It makes reference to the contents a matter of some difficulty. On the whole, however, we have to express our hearty approval of this neat and handy diary.

The Ophthalmoscope. A Manual for Students. By GUSTAVUS HARTRIDGE, F.R.C.S., &c. With 63 illustrations. London: J. & A. Churchill. 1891. Pp. 123.

AFTER a careful perusal of this volume we have come to the conclusion that it possesses no special advantages over similar works intended for the same purpose-namely, as a pocket-book of reference for use in the out-patient room. Indeed, we have already questioned the necessity for the existence of such works, in view of the numerous small and portable hand-books on ophthalmology as a whole.

Chapters I., II, and III. are devoted to preliminary optics, the theory and use of the ophthalmoscope, retinoscopy, &c., while the remaining chapters deal with the normal and pathological appearances of the fundus of the eye, including one on the examination of the anterior parts of the eyeball by focal illumination. The latter portion is simply and clearly written; the best chapters, perhaps, being those on the optic nerve and retina. The first part is not so satisfactory, many of the explanations, although obvious to anyone possessing a slight knowledge of optics, are not sufficiently precise and explicit for students. We may take a few instances. One occurs on the very first page. It is stated that "Rays of light diverge-the nearer the source of the rays the more they diverge;" this is evidently not true in an absolute sense, the angle of divergence between any two rays is always the What is implied is, that if rays impinge on a given surface, the angle formed by the extreme outer rays is greater the nearer the surface is to the source of light.

same.

On page 7 we read that "the amount of refraction is the same for any medium, at the same obliquity, and is called the index of refraction; air is taken as the standard and is called 1." This statement gives a very hazy notion of the real meaning of a refractive index. We could point out several other examples, but the above will suffice. There are also a few instances of omissionse.g., on page 15 spherical aberration is mentioned without any explanation of its meaning. On page 21 the reason why rays entering the eye return to the source of origin is not given, nor is the reader referred back to it. The movement of the vessels, as seen with the ophthalmoscope, in myopia and hypermetropia is not fully explained.

An appendix which occupies the three last pages gives a resumé of the proper routine to be adopted when examining an eye. The book is remarkably free from misprints, but "Galezowski" appears twice as "Galizowski."

Differences in the Nervous Organisation of Man and Woman, Physiological and Pathological. By HARRY CAMPBELL, M.D., B.S. London: H. K. Lewis. 1891. Pp. 383.

THIS most interesting and fascinating work is divided into three parts. The first treats of the evolution of sex. The following is the account of how the sexes came to be separated:-" Suppose that in the evolutionary career of a given species a stage has been reached at which, while the organism still remains hermaphroditic, the female generative system is fairly complex ; then given an individual varying in such wise that the female generative system is better developed, and the male generative system not so well developed as in an average member of the class, such an individual will stand a better chance of leaving a numerous progeny than the average member. And, similarly, an organism possessing the male generative system more developed than the female will be at an advantage over others as regards its capacity for fertilising. According to the laws of heredity, as limited by sex, their respective characters will tend to be transmitted respectively to certain individuals among the offspring, some developing more of the female, others more of the male sexual character. It is further evident that those of the offspring in which the sexual disparity is greatest will stand the best chance of leaving a numerous progeny to inherit their sexual

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peculiarites; and thus it happens that with each generation the female element will become more pronounced in one set of individuals, the male in another, until an element in each organism being finally eliminated altogether the sexes become quite distinct."

As regards the all-important question of the inheritability of somatogenetic characters no decided opidon is given; but the author inclines to agree with Weismann, and to deny such inheritance. That blastogenetic characters are inherited there can be no doubt; but how far these are influenced by the environment is not quite clear. Weismann believes that effects produced by the environment are inheritable, but that the change thus wrought takes no part in evolution. Dr. Campbell, however, maintains that distinct pathological conditions may be thus induced, and that the tendency to disease may thereby accumulate from generation to generation.

The views of Gidder and Thompson that the male organism is more katabolic and the female organism is more anabolic, that the former is characterised by the expenditure of energy, the latter by the storage of energy, are fully considered, and the contrast is regarded as most important and having considerable pathological significance, although it cannot be taken as expressing the primary and fundamental sexual difference.

In the second part, which is "chiefly concerned with the pathological application of conclusions arrived at in Part I.,” we would notice as more than usually interesting the chapters on woman and undeveloped man, and those on the monthly rhythm. In the latter it is argued that a monthly period or cycle is common to both men and women, and that the actual occurrence of the menstrual flux is only one stage of the cycle, just as new or full moon is of the cycle in which the moon completes her orbit around the earth.

The third part is psycho-physiological. In this the chapters on the varieties of male will are of great interest. These varieties are divided into four groups:—

1. The form in which compound mento-motor action tends to approximate to simple mento-motor action.

2. That in which no one impulse to action is able to retain the permanent mastery-i.e., vacillation.

3. That due to the peculiar strength of sense over motion of the nature of a fascination.