468 NATURAL SCIENCE. august. 



paraphernalia of "burning mountains," "flames," "smoke," and 

 " fire," and not only so, but inventing a new error, as where he 

 enhances the brilliancy of his pages with "illuminated gas." No 

 doubt exists about the occurrence of flames during an eruption, but 

 they are so feeble that acute observers like Spallanzani and von 

 Waltershausen were led to deny their existence. But Pilla described 

 them so far back as 1833, and they have repeatedly been seen since, 

 one of the last exact accounts of them being that of Fouque ; but 

 they do not play a prominent part, and certainly do not explain the 

 volcanic glow. For a modern writer to thus recklessly revive ancient 

 and long-exploded errors under the name of " Contemporary Science," 

 is to commit no less than a crime against science. We should not 

 have wasted so much space over this work, which was, perhaps, 

 not intended to be taken seriously, but for our fear that it will, in 

 many partially instructed minds, sow the seeds of error, and we 

 abstain from pointing out its lost opportunities ; those sins of omission 

 which are as grave and numerous as those of commission. We have 

 now done with our author, whose ignorance of Contemporary Science 

 is of that most fatal kind, the invincible ignorance which is ignorant 

 even of its own existence. 



The Etiology and Pathology of Grouse Disease, Fowl Enteritis, etc. 

 By E. Klein, M.D., F.R.S. Pp. xii., 130. 53 illustrations. London : Mac- 

 millan & Co., 1892. Price 7s. 



It would be hard to point to any investigation of disease and its cause 

 showing greater acuteness of apprehension, honesty of method and 

 resourcefulness in direction than this research of Dr. Klein's. The 

 elusive causa causans of grouse-disease has at last been captured. The 

 only certainty about the matter in the minds of those who have tried to 

 grasp the cause of this disease has hitherto been the insufficiency of 

 the late Dr. Cobbold's theory of parasitism by a nematoid worm. 

 Grouse that die of this disease beyond doubt very frequently exhibit 

 the presence of this and other parasites, but these parasites also occur 

 in other birds not subject to it ; they are not invariably present, and, 

 above all, the dead birds frequently appear plump and without sign 

 of emaciation. Suggestive contributions to the solution of the 

 mystery were made by Drs. Colquhoun, Macdonald, Farquharson, 

 and Mr. Andrew Wilson, but it was left to Dr. Klein to capture the 

 bacillus, cultivate it, and successfully inoculate mice and birds with 

 the virus. The great difficulties attending the inoculation of grouse 

 have prevented the absolute demonstration of the matter, since 

 inoculation in an infected area would prove nothing, and their inocu- 

 lation on a moor free from the disease would be somewhat expensive, 

 to say the least, while the difficulties with regard to tame grouse are 

 hard to surmount. It will hardly be objected, however, to this 

 research that there is any lack of corroboration, since the inoculation 

 experiments on other animals adequately answer such objections. 

 There are, moreover, very interesting and hopeful observations 

 with regard to an attenuated virus. 



The accounts of a pathogenic bacillus resembling that of grouse 

 disease, of fowl enteritis, and of " cramps " in young pheasants are 

 all masterly contributions to the rapidly-growing knowledge of disease 

 of this class. There is nothing so impressive in the book as the dead- 

 liness of aim shown by its author throughout — it works up to a 

 positively artistic effect when the reader comes to the final investi- 



