130 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



Facts and Fictions of Mental Healing. 



By Charles M. Barrows. Boston : 



H. II. Carter & Kanick Pp. 248. 

 Price, $1.25. 



It is a friendly hand which has written 

 these chapters. According to Mr. Barrows's 

 preface, he " is convinced, by the results of 

 many careful tests, that if the mental treat- 

 ment of disease be not all that its most 

 sanguine advocates picture it, it is a power- 

 ful therapeutic agent Avhen slcillfully used, 

 and based on a philosophy which has done 

 the world incalculable good." In the open- 

 ing chapters the author gives as clear an 

 account as could be expected of the some- 

 what confused and contradictory ideal phi- 

 losophy and pantheistic creeds of the mental 

 healers, little if any of which appears to be 

 essential to mental healing ; " indeed, a ma- 

 jority of the cures of this character," says 

 Mr. Barrows, " have been wrought by per- 

 sons utterly ignorant of, or disbelievers in, 

 the doctrines of modern psychopathy." He 

 describes a number of cures without medi- 

 cine effected by regular physicians either by 

 acting on the mind of the patient, or by re- 

 signing him to the recuperative power of a 

 strong constitution. None of the cases of 

 relapse or death under mental treatment 

 which have been reported are alluded to by 

 Mr. Barrows, although he mentions that one 

 of the great lights of " Christian science " 

 was recently prostrated with nervous exhaus- 

 tion, and obliged to seek medical aid ; and 

 that another, who had become so enthusi- 

 astic as to declare that he could never be 

 sick, died within a year of haemorrhage of 

 the lungs. The concluding chapters consist 

 of more or less relevant matter drawn from 

 Buddhism, Brahmanism, and the philosophy 

 of Emerson. 



Palaeolithic Man in Northwest Middlesex- 

 By John Allen Brown. Illustrated- 

 London : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 227. 



This contribution to the study of pre- 

 liistoric man in Britain embodies the sub- 

 stance of papers read before various scien- 

 tific societies, describing investigations by 

 the author in the northwestern portion of 

 the county which environs London north of 

 the Thames. The river-deposits here run 

 back for about three miles, rising in terraces 

 to more than one hundred and forty feet 

 above the present level of the stream. The 



author describes and figures a large number 

 of worked flints from the gravels of various 

 levels, as well as similar implements from 

 other sources. He reviews the customs of 

 savage tribes in various parts of the world, 

 who still use stone implements, and from 

 this material constructs a picture of Paleo- 

 lithic life in Middlesex. As to the antiquity 

 of man in Britain, he concludes that the 

 river-drift hunter of the Thames Valley, en- 

 tering the British Isles at least as early as 

 the first Continental period, saw the last 

 submergence of the greater part of the 

 British Isles beneath the sea, survived the 

 Glacial period which followed the re-emer- 

 gence of the land, and, as the glaciers 

 retreated, reoccupicd that portion of the 

 country from which the sea and the ice had 

 driven him. 



Oilman's Historical Pieaders. Nos. 1, 2, 

 and 3. By Arthur Oilman. Chicago: 

 The Interstate Publishing Company. 



The making of books for young persons 

 is not always an easy matter, and this is 

 conspicuously the case with historical books. 

 Most of the short and concise histories in- 

 tended for school use are so condensed in 

 matter, so filled with details and with use- 

 less names and dates, that they but poorly 

 fulfill the purpose for which they are writ- 

 ten. The true end to be aimed at in 

 teaching history to the young is to give 

 them a clear and correct outline view of the 

 history of the leading nations, and impress 

 this view as vividly as possible upon their 

 minds. But too often the books they have 

 to study are so overloaded with detail that 

 the outlines of the whole are lo.st in the 

 multiplicity of the parts ; and thus the at- 

 tention and the memory are heavily taxed 

 without any corresponding benefit. 



The books now before us are not liable 

 to this objection. Mr. Oilman seems to 

 have in the main an excellent idea of what 

 matter and how much should be introduced 

 into a school-book on history. Very few 

 of his chapters are crowded with detail, 

 and for such cases of the kind as do occur 

 there is generally some special reason. The 

 three volumes on American history form a 

 graded scries, the first being the simplest 

 and the last the most difficult. The first 

 volume is devoted to the discovery of the 



