Monthly Review of Literature. 203 



effecting a rapid communication with India, one has been devised which, to say 

 the least, will he found practicable at all times of the year, and besides must 

 be more economical than many of the wild-goose schemes previously pro- 

 posed. We pass over the plan of communication by way of the Rhine, the 

 Danube, the Black Sea, over the Caucasus, and down the Euphrates, as being 

 worthy only of Don Quixote's romantic imagination. Capt. Chesney's pa- 

 tient and talented investigations have proved the Euphrates, even in the lower 

 part of its course, to be imperfectly navigable, and quite unfit to be the medium 

 of a post-office communication with India, It seems surprising to us as we 

 look at a good and enlarged map of the intervening countries, and when we 

 consider the pacific dispositions of the Pasha of Egypt to our country, that 

 more attention should not have been paid to the communication by way of the 

 Mediterranean Sea, over the isthmus of Suez, and through the Red Sea. It is 

 the object of the author's pamphlet to advocate this medium of communi- 

 cation, and we think that he has made out a case that entitles him to a re- 

 spectful hearing from those who are most interested in the establishment of 

 such a communication. We know very well that the time is not far distant 

 when such communication will be adopted as mere matter of necessity : we 

 hope that those disinterested individuals wh o at the risk of their lives and 

 property have maintained so far as private persons could a rapid communica- 

 tion with India, will be.allowed to reap under government's sanction the well- 

 earned reward of their labours. 



Clinique Medicale. By G. ANDRAL. Translated by D. SPILLAN, 

 M.D. Renshaw. 



THIS excellent work is at last completed. It is by far the best book that has 

 appeared upon medical bedside practice that has been presented to the medical 

 profession for some years. 



Some of our great physicians should blush when they look over the pages 

 of this voluminous work, and see it filled with an extraordinary detail of 

 valuable cases. We would wish them to emulate this great French physician 

 rather than envy him. English practice and English hospitals are not want- 

 ing in their train of painful diseases, and a compiled account of them would 

 be an important acquisition to our medical literature, while the information 

 they contain would contribute to mitigate the agonies of the sick bed. 



Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Skin. By SAMUEL PLUMBE. 

 4th Edition. Highley. 



MEDICAL men and students will avail themselves of this useful work by a 

 gentleman who has considerably advanced the knowledge of these extraor- 

 dinary and complicated diseases. The plates are well executed, and express 

 forcibly the appearance of the disease they are intended to illustrate. 



This is one of the few good English works that the medical profession pos- 

 sesses on this subject. They have hitherto been altogether monopolized, ex- 

 cept in a few instances, by the French authors, and from the nature of the 

 charitable institutions for those diseases in France, this result is but a natural 

 consequence. 



Works on diseases of the skin have generally been placed beyond the reach 

 of students by the great expense attending their illustration. Mr. Plumbe has 

 anticipated this difficulty, and with a well-illustrated treatise he has also pro- 

 duced a good and useful book. 



British Medical Almanack for 1837. By WILLIAM FARR. Sherwood 



and Co. 



OF all the Medical Almanacks to which the improving spirit of the times has 

 given birth, this is decidedly the best. When first presented to the oubli* it 



