414 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



eminent experimental physiologists of Eng- 

 lish-speaking countries. The two volumes 

 contain more than thirty articles, with full 

 details and graphical records of experiments 

 continued in series and their results, relating 

 to the nerves and nervous action, the heart, 

 circulation, muscular work, digestion, the 

 kidneys, animal temperatures, the secretions, 

 mechanical action of the organs, chemical 

 changes in the body and in its secretions, 

 etc., and the chemical effects of various 

 agents, action of drugs, salts, and other sub- 

 stances on various organs and their work, 

 the senses and sensation, and other bodily 

 functions and processes. The journal is a 

 work of immense value to students and all 

 interested in investigations in this field of 

 research, and in the application of their re- 

 sults to the promotion of the health and vigor 

 of the body and the lengthening of life. 



The Alchemical Essence and the Chemical 

 Element: An Episode in the Quest of 

 the Unchanging. By M. M. Pattison 

 Mum. London and New York; Long- 

 mans, Green & Co. Pp. 94. Price, $1.60. 



The essence in old-time alchemistry, when 

 contrasted with the element of the modern 

 cult, can scai'cely fail to excite an interest 

 bordering on romance while retaining bounds 

 strictly scientific in their nature. 



The terse and entirely explicit volume be- 

 fore us presents the acceptable feature of 

 uniting more closely some turning points be- 

 tween our acquaintance with modern chemis- 

 try and the visionary ground occupied by our 

 forefathers, who long sought the unity of 

 Nature in the as yet unfound philoso- 

 pher's stone. When Thomas Vaughan, un- 

 der the worn de plume of Eugenius Phila- 

 lethes, wrote in the seventeenth century that 

 Nature did not move " by the theorie of 

 men, but by their practice," he pointedly 

 foreshadowed and it mayhap unconsciously 

 prophesied the achievements of modern 

 chemical science. In this, as in numerous 

 other phenomena, an inexorable though un- 

 seen law seems to wait upon all sincere 

 effort to unbosom the seci-ets of Nature. 

 When the anxious alchemist of a bygone age 

 immersed his bar of iron in a solution of 

 bluestone and, obtaining a deposit of copper 

 upon the iron surface, announced that he had 

 transformed the latter into the former metal, 



he mistook a seeming for an absolute truth ; 

 or, when in boiling water he discovered a 

 residue of earth, and declared that he had 

 changed water into mud, he simply lacked 

 the instrumental means the balance to 

 verify a whole instead of pronouncing a half 

 truth. By such an experimenter, strange 

 occurrences were not patiently dealt with, 

 and a discovery was labeled prior to its 

 meaning being known. A lack of delicate 

 philosophical instruments retarded the ad- 

 vances of the alchemist at every step, and 

 that he made any progress at all was mainly 

 due to his incessant day and midnight vigils. 

 While the author of this entertaining 

 volume records with care material facts 

 governing ancient as well as modern chem- 

 istry, he admits the indefiniteness of the con- 

 ception of unity in material phenomena, and 

 intimates that, to at all come within I'each 

 of a definition of Nature's underlying es- 

 sence, would be to know every detail of 

 natural science, and indite a history of Na- 

 ture itself. His essay is penned " in the 

 hope " that such as exert their " wit and rea- 

 son " regarding life's problems may help to 

 solve Nature's questions and "those of her 

 students who follow the quest of the un- 

 changing." 



Pain : Its Neuro-pathological, Diagnos- 

 tic, Medico-legal, and Neuro-therapeu- 

 Tic Relations. Illustrated. By J. 

 Leonard Corning, A. M., M. D. Phila- 

 delphia : J. B. Lippincott Company. Pp. 

 328. Price, $1.75. 



To advance in some degree " the cause " 

 of medical science is the sincere desire of 

 the author in placing in the hands of students 

 and physicians the above work, which to all 

 intents and purposes bears upon its face the 

 insignia of much thought and labor. In no 

 special branch of medical treatment is the 

 practicing physician more frequently called 

 upon to exercise his wits than where pain is 

 concerned, and for its alleviation the accu- 

 rate diagnosis needed. 



The book is divided into two parts ; the 

 first embracing pain in its physiological, 

 pathological, and clinical relations. These 

 are again subdivided into a definition, con- 

 duction, and physiology of pain. In treat- 

 ing of the pathology of pain no effort is 

 spared to render lucid neuritis, or inflam- 

 mation of the nerves, multiple neuritis, 



