760 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



His plea for the validity and value of 

 consciousness as a base of knowledge, and 

 his demand for a place for the metaphysical 

 method coordinate with the inductive, are 

 suggestive and able. Belief in the past, 

 trust in the reality of memory, in personal 

 identity, in the uniformity of the order of 

 Nature, and in an external world, is meta- 

 physical is made known by consciousness 

 only, and is of the nature of faith. 



We are reminded here from time to 

 time, as we read, of Bixby's lately-published 

 work on " Similarities of Physical and Re- 

 ligious Knowledge," but we have no space 

 to attempt even an approach to a complete 

 synopsis of the work, and must commend 

 it to the personal examination of those in- 

 terested. 



Hay-Fever ; or, Summer Catarrh : its Na- 

 ture and Treatment : Including the Early 

 Form, or " Rose Cold ; " the Later Form, 

 or "Autumnal Catarrh;" and a Middle 

 Form, or " July Cold," hitherto unde- 

 scribed ; based on Original Researches 

 and Observations, and containing Sta- 

 tistics and Details of Several Hundred 

 Cases. By Geo. M. Beard, A. M., M. D., 

 Fellow of the New York Academy of 

 Medicine, etc. New York: Harpers. 

 Pp. 266. Price, $2.00. 



This is a painstaking book, that will 

 hardly fail to prove instructive to the class 

 of sufferers for whose benefit it has been 

 prepared. Dr. Beard has supplemented his 

 medical observations and experience of the 

 disease, which he says is incorrectly termed 

 " Hay-Fever," by an extensive series of in- 

 quiries put to patients in regard to numer- 

 ous facts which it seemed impossible to get 

 in any other way. He sent a circular con- 

 taining fifty-five questions to a large num- 

 ber of persons, and received reports of some 

 two hundred cases, giving much valuable 

 information; and this, with his considerable 

 personal practice, is made the basis of his 

 treatment of the subject. In regard to the 

 nature of the malady, he observes in the 

 preface : 



" The theory taught in this book, that 

 this disease is a complex resultant of a 

 nervous system especially sensitive in this 

 direction, acted upon by the enervating in- 

 fluence of heat, and by one or several of a 

 large number of vegetable and other irri- 

 ' nits, has the advantage over other theories 



that it accounts for all the phenomena ex- 

 hibited by the disease in this or in any 

 Other country. 



" The transmissibility of the disease from 

 parents to children; the temperaments of 

 the subjects ; the capricious interchanging 

 of the early, the middle, and the later forms ; 

 the periodicity and persistence of the Jit- 

 tacks, and their paroxysmal character; the 

 points of resemblance between the symp- 

 toms and those of ordinary asthma ; the 

 strange idiosyncrasies of different individ- 

 uals in relation to the different irritants ; 

 the fact that it is a modern disease, peculiar 

 to civilization ; the fact that it abounds 

 where functional nervous disorders are most 

 frequent, and is apparently on the increase 

 pari passu with other nervous diseases ; 

 and, finally, the fact that it is best relieved 

 by those remedies that act on the nervous 

 system all these otherwise opposing and 

 inconsistent phenomena are by this hypoth- 

 esis fully harmonized. Those, however, who 

 are unwilling to accept this interpretation 

 will in this work find a resume that is meant 

 to be both impartial and exhaustive of other 

 theories, and of all known facts relating to 

 this affection, wherever observed. . . . Bear- 

 ing in mind that this work will find its read, 

 ers mostly among the laity, and chiefly 

 among the sufferers from the disease, the 

 aim has been to avoid, so far as might be, 

 purely technical words and phrases, and, 

 while keeping strictly within the limits of 

 science, to bring every point within the com- 

 prehension of those who know little or 

 nothing of medicine, save what has been 

 wrought into them by their own painful ex- 

 periences with this distressing malady." 



Report on the Hygiene op the United 

 States Army, with Descriptions op 

 Military Posts. By John S. Billings, 

 Assistant Surgeon, U. S. A. Washing- 

 ton : Government Printing-Office. 1875. 

 Pp. 567. 



The author begins his report with an 

 allusion to the difficulty experienced by 

 army medical men in getting their recom- 

 mendations on sanitary matters attended to 

 by the officers in charge of the posts, and 

 follows this with the order of 1874, defin- 

 ing the duties of the medical officer so far 

 as they relate to the hygienic management 

 of the soldiers. This order seems broad 



