486 



NATURE 



[March 27, 1890 



fatigue to the presence of uric acid in the blood — in fact, 

 considers a fatigued man to be in exactly the same con- 

 dition as a gouty man. His observations, however, 

 seem to have been very few in number, and the analyses 

 were all made for him by a friendly chemist. Still, it is 

 unfair to the book to regard it as a contribution to the 

 advance of physiological science. It is really an excel- 

 lent little account of the physiology of bodily exercise, 

 and its role in the maintenance of health, by a medical 

 practitioner. It seems to be chiefly culled from the 

 standard French works on general physiology, and on 

 the physiology of movement. The author has digested 

 his materials well, and so produced a very readable and 

 lucid account of his subject. For a book of its class, it is 

 remarkably free from mistakes, though physiologists 

 might not agree with him in his account of the produc- 

 tion of breathlessness or the causation of gout. 



The style is simple, and the book is well adapted for 

 popular use, and ought to find favour with our exercise- 

 loving countrymen. E. H. S. 



Boilers — Marine and Land. By Thomas W. Traill, 

 F.E.R.N., M.Inst.C.E. Second Edition. (London: 

 Charles Griffin and Co., 1890.) 



This volume is a second edition of a work noticed in 

 these columns last year. It was then a pleasure to ex- 

 press the opinion that the work would be useful to all 

 connected with this particular branch of mechanical 

 engineering. The author has found it necessary to extend 

 the tables of scantlings, &c., from 160 to 200 pounds 

 pressure per square inch. This in itself is sufficient 

 evidence of the continued increase of steam pressures 

 used in marine and stationary engines— probably the only 

 practicable direction in which greater economy of fuel is to 

 be obtained. These increased steam pressures have also 

 the advantage of diminishing the gross weight of machinery 

 on board ship. 



• The greater use made of mild steel by engineers 

 generally is interesting, considering the fight the steel 

 manufacturers had a few years ago to get it used at all in 

 place of iron for many purposes. Mr. Traill observes 

 that, " notwithstanding the peculiarities of mild steel, it 

 is a material which may be used with safety and advan- 

 tage, if proper precautions be taken and due consideration 

 given to these peculiarities ; possibly it has fewer in- 

 firmities than iron ; and there can be no doubt that it is 

 a better and more serviceable material for general use in 

 the construction of boilers.'^ This is the experience of 

 most engineers intimate with the general behaviour of 

 the material when being worked up into boilers and other 

 constructions. To the many tests and safeguards specified 

 to prevent the use of a brittle and bad steel in any erection 

 is due the present excellence of this material, nor should 

 they now be in any way relaxed, for to accept material, 

 either iron or steel, on any particular brand is a mistake. 



The general utility of the work has been increased by 

 the addition of other matter and tables. The volume 

 cannot fail to be of very great use to engineers. It is 

 nicely printed, got up in a handy size, and strongly yet 

 pliably bound. N. J. L. 



The History and Pathology of Vaccination. Edited by 

 Edgar M. Crookshank, M.B. Two Vols. (London: 

 H. K. Lewis, 1889.) 



The arguments adopted in this work belong to a mental 

 attitude identical with that displayed by anti- vaccinators 

 in their clamorous treatment of the subject. They are 

 sophistical from beginning to end, and even as a book of 

 reference the volumes are not without drawbacks. 



Firstly, the argument is that cow-pox is to be regarded 

 as akin to syphilis rather than to small-pox, and that 

 therefore cow-pox is no protection against small-pox. On 

 this hypothesis ulcerated arms sometimes occurring after 

 vaccination are to be regarded as reversions to type, 



rather than as due to the ill-treatment by over-anxious 

 mothers not content to let Nature alone in her progress 

 towards recovery. Having assumed that vaccination is 

 no protection against small-pox, the book goes on to show 

 that the only means we have of controlling the devasta- 

 tions of this disease is by attention to sanitary arrange- 

 ments and by isolation, perhaps combined with judicious 

 inoculation. The latter, the book assures us, is a more 

 scientific procedure than the inoculation of cow-pox. 

 Next, the author is very angry with Jenner for caUing 

 vaccinia, "cow-pox" or "variola vaccinia." To this 

 stroke of dexterity by Jenner is to be attributed, says 

 Prof. Crookshank, all the credit that vaccination has 

 attained ; thus for a single happy thought Parliament 

 gave Jenner ^30,000 as a consequence of his conceit, and 

 England has been made to submit to the most tyrannical 

 of laws. 



This carping at the pioneer of new knowledge, and 

 more especially at those forecasts of his which necessarily 

 could only be verified by the lapse of time, is certainly 

 not calculated to shake the faith of those who now fully 

 comprehend not only the immense value of vaccination, 

 but also the small amount of mischief which it has ever 

 done. 



The best that can be said for Prof. Crookshank's work 

 is that it is well published. The printing is bold and 

 clear, and the lithographs, such as they are, well 

 reproduced. 



Vol. ii. contains reproductions of original papers, most 

 if not all of which are out of print, and cannot now be 

 obtained except at fancy prices. 



Had Prof. Crookshank been satisfied with editing these, 

 and had he refrained from expressing his opinions, we 

 should have been grateful to him. The book does not 

 pretend to be a practical work on the subject of which it 

 treats ; and for the rest it might have been compiled by 

 the average anti-vaccinator. Robert Cory. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex - 

 pressed by his correspondents . Neither can he undertaki 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejectee 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of NATURE, 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. \ 



The Transmission of Acquired Characters, 

 and Panmixia. 



I SUPPOSE that a correspondent has no claim to limit the 

 scope of a discussion in such a journal as Nature. At the 

 same time I feel it to be a rather severe burden when I am called 

 upon to expound, in answer to one letter after another, the merest 

 common-places of the subject under discussion, and to retail in 

 this place the substance of books like Weismann's "Essays" 

 and Wallace's " Darwinism " (to which the attention of your 

 readers has been already drawn by reviews), not to mention the 

 "Philosophic Zoologique" and the "Origin of Species." It 

 seems to me that there might be interest and profit in opening 

 your columns to the statement of newly observed cases which 

 seem to tell in favour of either the Lamarckian or the anti- 

 Lamarckian theories, or to novel criticisms of any cases which 

 have already been discussed elsewhere ; but surely the repeated 

 citation of familiar exploded "cases," and the reiteration of 

 arguments and beliefs which have long since received attention, 

 is not fair to the writers who have dealt with these cases and these 

 arguments in admirable treatises which are well known (I am 

 happy to think) to nearly all serious students of these questions. 



"When I saw the distinguished name of Mr. Herbert Spencer 

 at the end of a letter in your issue of March 6, I anticipated 

 some real contribution to the discussion as to whether acquired 

 characters are transmitted or not. Mr. Spencer some few years 

 ago expounded his convictions in favour of Lamarck in one 

 of the monthly reviews. His present letter is not only dis- 

 appointing, but is unfortunately likely to mislead the unin- 

 formed. Mr. Spencer states what we all know, viz. that Mr. 

 Darwin considered that the effects of habit and of u=e and 



