266 



NA TURE 



[January 20, 1898 



amyl in angina pectoris, a therapeutic discovery which 

 has been attributed to others. 



The enthusiasm for humanity which dictated so many 

 of these researches, led Richardson to the front of the 

 battle in the causes of preventive medicine and of 

 teetotalism. His splendid services in the field of sanitary 

 reform are too well known to need record in these 

 columns ; his determined advocacy of total abstinence, 

 no doubt, as he tells us, to his own pecuniary detriment, 

 sprang again from his ardent humanity. Whether^ 

 right or wrong, he was as a lion in his aweless 

 championship of all measures which, in his opinion 

 concerned the well-being of the masses. At the same 

 time, his report of the social ignominy which overtook 

 those who advocated this unpopular cause, seems to us 

 exaggerated. Higginbottom, of Nottingham, may, of 

 course, have strode down the room at the Provincial 

 Medical Association unregarded and even shunned of 

 men ; but the present writer well remembers the honour 

 in which Higginbottom was held by his contemporaries 

 in spite of his determined opposition to the use of 

 alcohol ; and the writer, who also enjoyed the friend- 

 ship of other prominent teetotallers, such as Edward 

 Baines, never heard worse words spoken against these 

 blameless men than that they were the victims of 

 a troublesome whim. In practice the public not un- 

 naturally fight shy of a faddist, as they supposed the 

 teetotaller to be ; but, except in the society of topers, 

 surely no teetotaller as such was ever shunned. Sir 

 Benjamin's nephelococcygian dream of the ideal City of 

 Health made a great effect upon the audience to whom the 

 address was given. The earnest purpose and the fervent 

 desire of the orator to benefit mankind gave a reality to 

 a scheme which, of course, he put forward more or less 

 as a phantasy. 



In dwelling on the life of Sir Benjamin Richardson 

 we are led to wonder how it was that a man so earnest, 

 so able, so fertile in speculation, so ardent in his 

 laboratory researches should have achieved comparatively 

 little of permanent scientific value. On the other hand, 

 we shall not forget that much of his energy was given to 

 inspiring and directing the men of his time in social 

 work which, if it cannot be formulated, was none the 

 less permanent in its effects. We have hinted that the 

 speculative part of the volume before us is less interest- 

 ing than the narrative : the thoughts are turned out 

 upon paper in a crude state, and, generally speaking, 

 are no mor-e than the floating thoughts of any able 

 and thoughtful man. Nay, we cannot but feel that in 

 their form we observe the ill effects of the very ap- 

 prenticeship that he believed to be the best early 

 education for a medical man. We believe that a more 

 systematic training in scientific method in his earlier 

 days would have led not only to a chastening of such 

 speculations, but also to the attainment of scientific 

 discoveries of a more abiding value. Nevertheless, we 

 put down this book with a sense that men of Richardson's 

 stamp — courageous and unwearied in the pursuit of 

 truth — are the salt of our race ; and that even in the most 

 unsubstantial of his musings there is always an elevation 

 of tone which reveals the noble and humane character 

 of one so long a familiar figure among us, but whose 

 voice we shall hear no more. T. C. A. 



NO. 1473. VOL. 57] 



A NEW WORK ON POPULAR ASTRONOMY. 



The Concise Knowledge Astror.omv. By Agnes M. 

 Gierke, A. Fowler, A.R.C.S., F.R.A.S., Demonstrator 

 to the Royal College of Science ; and J. Ellard Gore, 

 F.R.A.S., M.R.I. A. With illustrations from photo- 

 graphs and drawings. Pp. x -f- 581. (London : 

 Hutchinson and Co., 1898.) 



THIS is a formidable array of authors, and the 

 necessity for such a numerous combination is 

 not at all clear. There is nothing in the book that 

 any one of the three could not have written, and we 

 might add that any one of the three could have written 

 a better book, than the united efforts of the three have 

 produced. While the separate parts, judged from a 

 popular standpoint, are in many respects admirable, 

 there is a want of cohesion in the whole, that is dis- 

 appointing and unsatisfactory. Collaboration to be 

 effective must be close and thorough ; but here, facts 

 are repeated by the separate authors in a way which 

 annoys, and statements are divided between the different 

 writers in a manner which disturbs, a reader. Efficient 

 editing could have prevented a good deal of this over- 

 lapping, and have dovetailed the parts together with 

 more skill ; but the cumbrous machinery that necessitated 

 an editor at all was a mistake. Can any one suppose 

 that there is any material gain in taking the chaptei-s on 

 the sidereal universe out of Miss Gierke's hands and 

 placing them in those of Mr. Gore, or that Mr. Fowler 

 was incapable of describing the main features of the 

 several members of the solar system ? Judging from the 

 result before us, an elementary book is not increased in 

 accuracy nor benefited in arrangement by distributing 

 the compilation among several authors. 



Of the trinity here under consideration, Miss Gierke is 

 the largest contributor. To her is entrusted the opening 

 chapters, sketching the history of the science from 

 Hipparchus to the present time. In her hands, a sketch, 

 however brief, is sure to be well arranged and graphically 

 written. We confess, however, to a little disappointment 

 that more space is not given to the development of 

 spectroscopy, and this remark applies not only here but 

 throughout the book generally. Owing to considerations 

 of space it might have been necessary to curtail, or even 

 to exclude, all reference to Mohammedan, and possibly 

 to pre-Newtonian science in these opening chapters ; but 

 this loss would have been more than compensated by 

 impressing on the average reader the importance of 

 astrophysics and the part it plays, and in the immediate 

 future, will play, in the development of astronomical 

 science. It must be, no doubt, always a difficult task to 

 know what facts are to be suppressed, and to what others 

 prominence must be given, in order to preserve in due 

 perspective the salient features that mark the onward 

 progress of a science. But full advantage has not been 

 taken of the marvellously rapid development of astro- 

 physics to make it an incentive to the study of astronomy. 

 The facts, and possibly the speculations, of spectroscopy 

 have a great fascination for the general reader. The 

 results can be presented without reference to mathe- 

 matical formulae, and by the powerful appeal they make 

 to the imagination, they are eminently calculated to 

 excite public enthusiasm and arouse an intelligent 



