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REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES.

We have not attempted to say anything about this volume from the standpoint of a chemist, only considering its application to the needs of the physician, and in this view it is such a book as every advanced medical man who is a student cannot do better than possess.

A TREATISE ON MATERIA MEDICA, PHARMACOLOGY AND THERAPEUTICS. By John V. Shoemaker, A.M., M.D., and John Aulde, M.D. Vol. I. Philadelphia and London: F. A. Davis, 1889. This work, in its first volume, is "devoted to pharmacy, general pharmacology and therapeutics, and remedial agents not properly classed with drugs." It would very likely be a misjudgment to record impressions of a work before it is completed, and we will be content in saying that the production of this volume is well arranged for study and reference, the letter press being of excellent quality, and the catch titles and words, enabling one to get over a large amount of printed space rapidly, and serving also to guide one to particular passages. The design of the book is for the student of the elementary principles, and at similar intervals are blank pages for the record of notes.

The authors will "postpone the issue of the second volume until such time as would permit them to go over the entire ground in the special department of drugs." After this part of their task is done, we will be able to say what relation the volume bears to its contemporaries.

ESSENTIALS OF PATHOLOGY AND MORBID ANATOMY. By C. E. Armand Semple. With 46 illustrations. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 913 Walnut St., 1890.

This is Saunders' Question Compenil No. 6, and is an excellent example of a student's help in preparing for examinations. It is customary for medical editors to inveigh against the use of books of this class, but when the average of this learned profession will pass an hour in silent colloquy with one like this. he must honestly confess that the subject is one that he is likely to allow to be sidetracked in these busy days of practical things.

Notwithstanding that the letter press and cuts have a worn and cheap appearance, the teaching quality of the book is very good, and we can commend it to our student friends.

REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES.

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PHYSICIAN'S LEISURE HOUR SERIES. (1) Diabetes, by A. H. Smith, M.D. (2) Nervous Syphilis, by H. C. Wood, M.D. (3) Education and Culture as Correlated to Health and Diseases of Women, by Alexander J. C. Skene, M.D.

The publishers of this handy series have shown good judgment in the selection of monographs, giving some original essays and reprinting others which had already attained to a good degree of favor. The essay on Diabetes gives a good practical account of the disease for the use of those who have to treat it, leaving out discussion of unsettled points. It is brief, pretends to nothing, but is a collection of the best that is already established.

The essay by Prof. Wood is already known to the public, and credit is due to him of having given some of the earliest clearly defined clinical portraitures of syphilis of the nervous system.

Dr. Skene's essay covers the ground so often attempted in addresses before sanitary societies and elsewhere, on the moral and physical nature of our women, pointing out errors and abuses, analyzing some of the peculiarities of our American life, and helping his readers to reflect, and so in this sense is an educational number of no mean importance. It is a pity that we can read such essays, acknowledge that we are guilty according to the terms of the indictment, and look at each other despairingly, as though by some fatality we were bound to pursue the erroneous steps which promote the deterioration of our children's health. After all, we think those parents have begun right who have faithfully taught their daughters self-control-self-denial-for upon such a basis it is marvellous what can be built.

WOOD'S MEDICAL AND SURGICAL MONOGRAPHS.

"A Practical

The number for December contains five essays: Treatise on Baldness," by Dr. George T. Jackson, M.D.; "The Sphere, Rights and Obligations of Medical Experts," by James T. O'Dea, M.D.; "Pathology and Treatment of Ringworm," by Geo. Thin, M.D,; "Notes on Dental Surgery," by T. Smith, M.D., LL.D.; "On Sounding for Gall-Stones and the Extension of Gall-Stones by Digital Examination," by Dr. Geo. Harley.

In the above list there are one or two good essays, and the wants of a large number of readers are supplied by the variety afforded by the publishers.

DISEASES OF THE EYE. A Practical Treatise for Students of Ophthalmology. By George A. Berry, M. B., F. R. C. S. Ed., Ophthalmic Surgeon, Edinburgh, Royal Infirmary; Lecturer on Ophthalmology, Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. Lea Bros. & Co., Philadelphia, 1889.

This recent contribution to the literature of ophthalmology fills a place evidently waiting for it, viz: a practical English work on diseases of the eye which can be referred to by the busy practitioner with a certainty of finding therein the latest views on pathology and treatment of the different affections of the eye.

The practical nature of the work is still further enhanced by the beautiful and life-like illustrations given throughout the work, the production of which is an unusual feature in manuals of ophthalmology. The tints are closely approximated to those seen in actual disease of the eye, and there is no doubt that the representations given of diseases of the conjunctiva, cornea, iris, etc., will be a positive aid in diagnosis to many an amateur ophthalmologist. The plates are produced from drawings of actual disease by Dr. J. Tatham Thompson, of Cardiff, and deserve the highest praise for the manner in which they have been executed.

The work is divided into three sections and seventeen chapters beginning with the appendages of the eye and ending with a description of the different operations performed on that organ and its contiguous parts.

The work is original, apart from the common fund of information which is the stock of no particular author, and few references are made directly to other authorities. Diseases of the eyelids, conjunctiva, cornea, lens, ciliary body, choroid vitreous, retina and optic nerve are fully described. The chapter on glaucoma is very interesting, and under the head of etiology the following opinion is worthy of attention.: "As has already been remarked, however, changes found in glaucomatous eyes can rarely with any certainty be looked upon as primary and in some way connected with the outbreak of the symptoms of glaucoma, and not rather secondary, or resulting from the prolonged inflammatory or atrophic changes met with in the disease. But if direct anatomical evidence is difficult to obtain there are many clinical reasons for assuming that a stasis takes place in the circulation within the eye. Thus the greater

REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES, ETC.

35

tendency to disease the older the individual, its occurrence along with diseases of atheromatous degeneration elsewhere, and the tendency that there is for an outbreak to take place after debilitating diseases, mental depression and other circumstances giving rise to a slowing of the heart's action are all suggestive of this. So also are the actions of iridectomy and the subsequent atrophic changes seen in the iris."

Anomalies of vision, intraocular tumors and diseases of the orbit are described and included in the latter is a description of Graves' disease.

Section second is devoted to errors of refraction and accommodation, affections of the oculo-motor muscle and examination of the eye; and herein the lover of optical mathematics may revel to his heart's content.

Section third describes the operations on the eye and its appendages. The grouping of the operations, apart from the description of the disease, may be an objectionable feature to some, as there are many readers who prefer to find a description of the remedial measure, even if it be a surgical one, included under the general heading of treatment.

The publishers' part of the work has been well done, and there is no doubt that this book will rank high in the list of recent contributions to the science of ophthalmology.

CURRENT LITERATURE.

THE NON-TUBERCULAR AND NON-CARDIAC HÆMOPTYSES OF ELDERLY PERSONS.

At a recent meeting of the medical Society of London, Sir Andrew Clark read a paper with the above title, in which he described a form of pulmonary hemorrhage occurring in persons somewhat past middle age, and which is not associated with any tuberculous or cardiac affection. His attention was first called to this condition many years ago by the occurence of a fatal case of

hæmoptysis in a man between fifty and sixty years of age, who had been admitted to the London Hospital for treatment of a subacute bronchitis. The patient had for several years been the subject of a moderate progressive osteo-arthritis, and for the past four or five winters had suffered from severe bronchitis. It was during one of the latter attacks that he was admitted to the hospital. About two weeks after admission he began to cough up small quantities of blood at short intervals. In spite of rest, restricted diet, application of ice to the chest, and the liberal use of astringents, the bleeding persisted, and within a week the patient died. At the autopsy the heart was found to be normal, and no evidence of tuberculous disease could be detected anywhere. Within the lungs were seen several isolated patches of emphysema surrounded by hemorrhagic extravasations. Examination under the microscope showed that the seat of the hemorrhage was in the immediate neighborhood of these emphysematous patches, and that the minute arteries in these localities were always diseased, the structural changes were being limited to nuclear proliferation in the middle coat, and an amorphous and hyaline infiltration of it and of the intima. The first change, the author believed, occurred in a terminal branch of the pulmonary or bronchial artery, and this resulted in obstruction of the blood-supply throughout a certain territory. Following this was degeneration of the capillaries and venous radicles, determining a true atrophic emphysema, and, the integrity of the vessels being thus impaired, the formation of thrombi or recurrent conditious of pressure brought about the fatal hemorrhage.

Subsequent to this observation Sir Andrew met with quite a number of similar cases, in all of which the usual treatment by astringents was without effect. Finally he determined to try another method of treatment. In a case which he saw in consultation, after having instituted the ordinary treatment without obtaining an arrest of the hemorrhage, he put the patient upon a light and rather dry diet, gave a dose of calomel at night followed by a saline. cathartic in the morning, and ordered an alkaline mixture containing ammonia. This was entirely successful, the bleeding ceased within thirty-six hours, and the patient recovered perfectly.

The following are the author's conclusions in regard to this form of pulmonary hemorrhage:

1. There occurs in elderly persons free from ordinary diseases of