June i6, 1921] 



NATURE 



485 



copiously illustrated, and most of the pictures are 

 helpful. A great many are borrowed, as may be 

 judji^ed from a list of between two and three 

 hundred acknowledgments in Prof. Shears 'shook. 

 Among these figures are four of a condition which, 

 says the author, " one reads about but does not 

 see " ! Prof. Sharpe in his work uses photo- 

 graphs abstracted from kinematograph series to 

 illustrate the stages of an operation and also the 

 gait in spastic palsies of cerebral origin ; the 

 method is interesting and perhaps useful. The 

 reproductions of microphotographs of dental 

 tissues, normal and diseased, given by Dr. 

 Marshall in his work on dentistry are really very 

 good. 



(i) and (2). Two of these books, those on 

 obstetrics and dentistry, are text-books "for the 

 student and practitioner," and both suffer a little 

 from their dual aim. Whilst not large enough 

 for works of reference, there is a tendency to 

 include mention of methods or procedures but little 

 used or of doubtful value, lest the author should 

 appear " not up to tiate. " The practitioner, 

 therefore, must make use of larger or more 

 specialised works, while the student is distracted 

 from essentials and perhaps conceives wrong ideas 

 of proportional values. The fault is by no means 

 peculiar to these volumes — it pervades very many 

 similar publications — which are,* in fact, both very 

 readable, for they are founded on extensive per- 

 sonal experience. With them as guide the 

 student will not go far astray in practice, but it is 

 just questionable whether the British student 

 would do well to face his examiner^ without other 

 help. 



(3) Prof. Sharpe 's book is not quite in the 

 same category. It, too, is founded on per- 

 sonal experience ; it embodies a large number 

 of case records and might almost be called a 

 thesis on the use of subtemporal decompression as 

 a routine treatment in the presence of undue intra- 

 cranial tension. In this country Harvey Gushing 

 is looked upon as the exponent of this operation 

 as to both indications and technique, and it is a 

 little surprising not to find here a more ample 

 acknowledgment of his pioneer work. The 

 author's advocacy of the operation, at any rate in 

 the birth palsies of children, in preference, appa- 

 rently, to attack nearer the known site of the 

 lesion, will scarcely suffice to secure a verdict in 

 his favour from a jury of British surgeons. His 

 documents, however, demand and deserve study 

 by specialists. He is probably right in his view 

 that recent severe injuries of the brain are too 

 often treated on .the principle of wait-and-see, but 

 i his method of demonstrating a long-persistent, 

 \ high cerebro-spinal pressure seems a little 

 % NO. 2694, VOL. 107] 



inadequate. The accepted physiological view of 

 the maintenance of normal pressure and of the 

 feasibility of modifying it by surgical measures 

 must be altered, if the operation of decompression 

 undertaken months or years after the injury be 

 indeed sufficient to accomplish so much ameliora- 

 tion of symptoms. Nevertheless it makes a very 

 interesting book. 



(4) The last book on the list is a little difficult 

 to place, at least for the British public, if not for 

 the American. It is a large and expensive- work, 

 alphabetically arranged in eleven sections which 

 are indicated by lettering in incised spaces at the 

 free margin. The frontispiece is a folding mani- 

 kin of value only to the layman, whilst the 

 eleventh section consists of a hundred pages of 

 pharmacology and therapeutics of use only to the 

 practised and practising physician. 



There is necessarily a lavish use of cross- 

 referencing which is sometimes irritating ; to jDe 

 sent from "myotonia congenita" to "amyo- 

 tonia congenita " only to be referred to 

 " dystrophy " is annoying. It is obviously im- 

 possible to cover the whole range of medicine, 

 surgery, and the specialties, such as eyes, skin 

 deformities, nasal and aural surgery, gynaecology, 

 obstetrics, and genito-urinary diseases, in one 

 volume, however bulky it may be. 



After all these complaints, when one comes to 

 the subject-matter it is impossible not to appre- 

 ciate the skill with which the " quick reference " 

 book has been compiled, or to overlook the 

 immense industry that has enabled Dr. Rehberger 

 to skim the cream of all recent work and to 

 present a mass of information in which it is diffi- 

 cult to detect a serious error. Moreover, when a 

 controversial statement slips in, there is always a 

 name or a reference to take the onus. 



Compendia are not looked upon with much 

 favour by those responsible for teaching, but 

 probably there is a demand for such a book by 

 busy practitioners, and it would not be surprising 

 if even the well-informed and well-read should 

 find it handy. 



Our Bookshelf. 



Chemie der Hefe und der alkoholischen Gdrung. 

 By Prof. H. Euler and Prof. P. Lindner. Pp. 

 X + 3504-2 Tafel. (Leipzig: Akademische 

 Verlagsgesellschaft m.b. H. : Gustav Fock, 



1915-) . , 



Horace Brown, in his charming reminiscences, 

 maintains the thesis that it is to the study of the 

 processes of brewing and other fermentation 

 industries that we owe many of the advances 

 which have so greatly extended our knowledge 

 ' in the domains of preventive medicine, modem 



