846 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



molecular structure, or on the resulting dynamical 

 relations, as well as on the fundamental attributes 

 of the ultimate atoms. There is, therefore, no 

 longer any reason for hmiting the statement of the 

 great fundamental law of definite proportions to the 

 relations of elementary substance, and clearness of 

 exposition is gained by giving to this statement the 

 widest possible scope. 



But unquestionably the most important advance 

 in chemistry during the last decade has resulted 

 from the study of the thermal changes accompany- 

 ing chemical processes, which has proved that the 

 law of the conservation of energy is a directing prin- 

 ciple in chemistry as important as it is in physics. 

 This study has developed an entirely new branch of 

 our science called thermo-chemistry ; and we now 

 confidently look forward to a time in the near future 

 when we shall be able to predict the order of phe- 

 nomena in chemistry as fully as we now can in as- 

 tronomy. 



So important and fundamental have been the 

 changes required by the recent progress that, in 

 preparing this book for a new edition, the author 

 has found it necessary to add a great deal of new 

 material and in many places to rewrite the old, but 

 he has endeavored to make the new edition, like 

 the fii-st, a popular exposition of the actual state of 

 the science. 



Health in the Household; or, Hygienic 

 Cookery. By Susannah W. Dodds, 

 M.D. New York : Fowler & Wells. Pp. 

 602. Price, $2. 



By hygienic cookery the author means 

 the preparation of predominantly vegetable 

 dishes without stimulating condiments or 

 the assistance of ingredients hard to digest. 

 On this subject she is in her own prefer- 

 ences radical, for not only would she dis- 

 card heating meats and spices and grease 

 of all kinds, but she intimates that she 

 would do away with milk, and, going behind 

 even the uncorrupted instincts of animals 

 in a state of nature, would abolish salt. 

 Exalting grains, fruits, and vegetables, as 

 the predominantly suitable staples of human 

 food, she has something to say of the man- 

 ner in which these things should be com- 

 bined in a single meal — what of them should 

 be eaten together — that deserves attention. 

 Radicalism and the statement of principles 

 constitute, however, but a part of the book. 

 In the practical part the author is more 

 catholic, and gives recipes for dishes both 

 in " the hygienic dietary " — that is, a diet- 

 ary strictly according to her principles — 

 and in an enlarged dietary of " compromise 

 dishes," into which meat dishes and the 

 least deadly errors of modern seasoning are 

 admitted. Hygienic people do not appear 



confined to a spare or monotonous diet. 

 Mrs. Dodds's list is full and various, and 

 some of the dishes are as good any the gour- 

 mands have. Including the compromise 

 dishes, the dyspeptic who is strong enough 

 to bear them can, after all, live like an epi- 

 cure. 



La Fabula de los Caribes. (The Fable of 

 the Caribs.) By Juan Ignacio de Ar- 

 mas. Havana : Francisco S. Ibanez. Pp. 

 ai. 



This monograph is numbered I of a 

 series of Americanist studies, and is a paper 

 which was read before the Anthropological 

 Society of Havana, at a date not given. It 

 traces the fable of the Caribs — who were 

 reported to be neighbors of the Amazons, to 

 be cannibals, and to flatten their heads — 

 from its origin with the ancients and its 

 primitive location on the Black Sea, through 

 the mutations it underwent with the authors 

 of the middle ages, to its final location by 

 the Spanish chroniclers in the newly discov- 

 ered regions of tropical America. Having 

 examined the grounds on which the charac- 

 teristics first ascribed to the Chalybs of the 

 Euxine were assigned to the Caribs of 

 America, he finds that they were false, and 

 that our Caribs were a people of mild and 

 peaceful habits. "The fable of the Car- 

 ibs," he says, " was in the beginning a geo- 

 graphical error ; then a hallucination ; and 

 finally a calumny." 



Reflex Nervous Influence, and its Impor- 

 tance as a Factor in the Causation and 

 Cure of Disease. By D. T. Smith, M. D. 

 New Orleans. 



Reflex influence is that property of the 

 nervous system by means of which, when one 

 organ is affected, some other one responds 

 to its call and acts instantaneously with it 

 for the common good. It is an important 

 factor in many relations of the individual to 

 its environment ; and familiar instances of 

 its operation may be found in the daily ac- 

 tions of men and beasts. Dr. Smith con- 

 ceives its function to be much more general 

 than has been supposed, and would extend 

 it to cases of disease. Thus colds are cases 

 of the response of some correlated internal 

 nerves, now of one part, now of another, 

 to impairment of vitality in the cutaneous 

 nerves. Poultices act favorably by stimu- 



