164 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



— or, in other words, an endeavour to bring into order and relationship the 

 phenomena of disease, and, recognising the relationship between phenomena, to 

 deduce the laws which underlie and determine the individual cases of diseases " 

 (Inflammation, p. 8). 



It is fortunate for pathology that there are those who, like Prof. Adami, are 

 willing to forgo to some extent the exacting pleasures of the laboratory for the 

 more meditative life. It is impossible, and is becoming more hopeless every day, 

 for any one engaged in active observation to keep abreast of the data which are 

 being accumulated in any but one or two comparatively small fields. The result 

 is that workers lose their sense of proportion and a separation arises, which, 

 while hardly amounting to a divorce, is distinctly obstructive of progress. The 

 bacteriologist, for example, is apt to forget that the rationale of his studies is the 

 effects of bacteria on tissues and of tissues on bacteria; the morbid histologist in 

 his study of inflammation may in a blaze of aniline dyes lose sight of just the same 

 fact from the opposite end. The meditative and scholarly pathologist, on the 

 other hand, can see both ends at once, and to his good offices as an intermediary 

 body every one is deeply indebted. 



The book commences with a general survey of cellular structure and function, 

 and includes an admirable survey of inheritance. Section II. considers the causes 

 of disease. The space devoted to monsters seems disproportionately great : it is, 

 however, a subject on which the author has himself thrown important light. 

 Bacteria, protozoa, and metazoa are only dealt with in a general way as parasites, 

 and the action of chemical poisons arising both without and within the body is 

 considered in due order. Section III., on the morbid and reactive processes, 

 occupies more than half the book. We have all known Adami on Inflammation ; 

 the chapters here are familiar but none the less delightful. Immunity is dis- 

 patched in some eighty pages, and we confess to some disappointment. The term 

 in which all the data of immunity must ultimately be expressed is the resistance of 

 the living animal to the direct test. Prof. Adami has dealt with the subject in the 

 conventional way, and the real wood is a good deal obscured by the trees of the 

 curious properties of blood serum in vitro — which may after all have very little to 

 do with the question. Hypertrophy, regeneration and kindred subjects come next, 

 to be followed by a portentous treatment of tumours extending to no less than 

 155 pages, apart from teratomata and cysts. How Prof. Adami can reconcile 

 his elaborate discussion of the classification of tumours with his confession of faith 

 which we have already quoted, we do not know : still less how he can justify the 

 embryological scheme which he adopts. The desire to classify tumours has seized 

 many distinguished men from time to time : we know enough about tumours now 

 to abandon this way of saying something about nothing, and the really essential 

 data as regards tumours have no more relation to the embryogeny of the tissues in 

 which they arise than to the size of the laboratory in which they are examined. 

 Hidden under this stamp-collecting arrangement, we find an abundant growth of 

 philosophic thought, directed, as it should be, towards the discovery of the nature,, 

 rather than the names, of benign and malignant growths. The concluding 

 hundred pages are among the best in the book, and deal with regenerative tissue 

 changes. 



The outstanding feature throughout is the philosophical nature of the discourse. 

 There is a clear understanding between the author and his reader that their aim 

 is to discover the principles which underlie the facts which they review. The well- 

 known facility of expression which Prof. Adami enjoys is displayed at its best, and 

 the book in consequence makes excellent reading. References to literature are 



