32 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Jan 



tendance of 25 persons. The admittance fee is $5 and the 

 annual dues are $5. Thirteen volumes of its Journal have 

 been published. The library contains 2,000 volumes and 

 the cabinet 5,000 specimens. The officers for 1899 are Dr. 

 Frank D. Skeel, President, Vice president, F. W. Leggett; 

 George E. Ashby, and Rev. J. L. Zabriskie Secretaries ; 

 Treasurer, James Walker ; Ludwig- Riederer, Librarian ; 

 Curator George E. Ashby. The Committee on Admission 

 is H. C. Bennett, G. H. Blake, T. S. Nedham, Fredk 

 Kato, G. E. Ashby ; On Publications, J. L. Zabriskie, 

 H. A. Parmentier, G. W. Kosmak, James Waker, F. D; 

 Skeel. 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



New Book. — The Subconscious Self and its Relation to 

 Education and Health by Louis Waldstein, M. D., New 

 York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 171 pp. $1.25. This is a 

 very interesting contribution to the study of psychic 

 phenomena such as telepathy, mind reading, hypnotism, 

 hysteria, trance, neurasthenia, mind healing, dreams, in- 

 sanity and similar phenomena. The author, like other 

 medical men, sees material things and phenomena ration- 

 alistically and writes carefully from that stand-point. He 

 gives no evidence of knowing the ancient and eastern 

 teachings of the existence and power of soul and spirit as 

 separable entities from physical bodies. If he would add 

 this study to his other work he would greatly enrich his 

 knowledge. The term subconscious self is paradoxical 

 and absurd from the non-material stand point. It is unde- 

 sirable from the psychic standpoint but it is useful to men 

 like the author who do not wish to grant that man is spirit, 

 has a soul, and sometimes lives in a physical body. When 

 it is known that spirit (in soul) exists consciously and in- 

 dependently of body at times and what they do apart from 

 the body, the theory of a subconscious self falls flat. But 

 we welcome Dr. Waldstein's book cordially and recom- 

 mend it to all our medical readers, which includes more 

 than half of our constituency. 



