440 



NA TURE 



[April 8, 1922 



of the intellectual world passed to Europe mainly 

 by means of material translated into Latin from 

 Arabic, often through Hebrew. This material had 

 itself been largely translated from Syriac, and the 

 Syriac versions themselves were derived from Greek, 

 so that Greek learning reached the West at third or 

 fourth hand. But between the eighth and the thir- 

 teenth centuries science and learning, literature and 

 culture remained, like civil organisation and military 

 power, mainly with the Arabic-speaking peoples who 

 stretched from India and Persia to the Atlantic sea- 

 board. The learning of this period is described as 

 " Arabian," and must be carefully distinguished from 

 the true " Arab " material which comes only from 

 Arabia. 



It is certain medical aspects of this great Arabian 

 civilisation with which Prof. Browne here deals. It 

 is a subject with a vast literature that can scarcely 

 be treated, even in outline, in a hundred and thirty 

 pages. Apart from the actual changes which the 

 medical system of Greece underwent in Arabian hands, 

 and besides the actual contributions of Arabian authors 

 themselves, an adequate history of Islamic medicine 

 would need to treat of the psychological basis of those 

 changes arising in part from the social and political 

 circumstances of the time, in part from the racial 

 characteristics of the Islamic peoples, and in part 

 from the philosophy and general outlook prevalent 

 among them. 



The time is still distant when it will be possible 

 to do this, and Prof. Browne,, in this admirable little 

 book, has essayed a smaller task. He concentrates 

 on the work of a small number of the most 

 important Arabian physicians, and notably on three 

 Persians, known to the medieval Latins under 

 the names of Rhazes, Haly Abbas, and Avicenna, 

 whose works were the main carriers of the Arabian 

 medical traditions to the West. Avicenna's enor- 

 mous " Canon " is especially of importance as being — 

 perhaps with the exception of the " Aphorisms " of 

 Hippocrates — the most widely read work on medicine 

 that has ever been written. More interesting peihaps 

 to most readers will be Rhazes, whose memorable 

 treatise on smallpox and measles was the first in 

 which these diseases were differentiated. This work 

 was translated by the late Dr. Greenhill in 1848, but, 

 with that exception. Prof. Browne's is, so far as we 

 know, the only modern book on Arabian medicine 

 in the English language based on first-hand know- 

 ledge. It will be valued both on that account and 

 as a very lucid and scientific exposition of a subject 

 which very few besides Prof. Browne himself are 

 qualified to treat. Charles Singer. 



NO. 2736, VOL. 109] 



Elementary Meteorology. 



(i) The Rainfall of the British Isles. By M. de Carle 

 S.Salter. Pp. xiii + 295. (London: University of 

 London Press, Ltd., 1921.) 8s. 6d. net. 



(2) Etudes EUmentaires de Meteorologie Pratique. By 

 Albert Baldit. Pp. ix + 347. (Paris: Gauthier- 

 Villars et Cie, 1921.) 15 francs net. 



(3) Simple Lessons on the Weather for School Use and 

 General Reading. By E. Stenhouse. Pp. viii-l-i35 



+ 12 plates. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 

 1921.) 45. 



(4) Handbook of Meteorology : A Manual for Co- 

 operative Observers and Students. By J. W. Red way. 

 Pp. v + 294. (New York : J. Wiley and Sons, Inc. ; 

 London : Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1921.) 245. net. 



(i) TN "The Rainfall of the British Isles" Mr. 

 X Salter gives a wealth of information that 

 hitherto could be obtained only by searching through 

 the volumes of " British Rainfall." The present work 

 should therefore appeal to the large public which takes 

 an interest in rainfall, and as some 5000 observers read 

 their gauges daily it will be realised how large that public 

 is. Almost every observer would benefit by a perusal 

 of this work, where he will find a discussion of the 

 problems which he himself is assisting to solve. He 

 will find an account of the various types of gauge, and 

 that some, still in use and still sold by instrument 

 makers, are untrustworthy. He will find the exposure 

 of gauges discussed, and he may improve that of his 

 own. He will learn how the data he supphes are used, 

 and find maps illustrating various types of rain, some 

 almost wholly influenced by orographical features, 

 some by the passage of depressions, and others due to 

 thunderstorms. 



The discussion of seasonal variation and annual 

 fluctuation will be read with much interest at the 

 present time. Numerous maps are a great feature 

 of the book, and are most instructive ; any one 

 who thinks that his own gauge is worth keeping should 

 study the map of the thunderstorm rain in London 

 on June 16, 1917, and note that there was no rain at 

 the Oval, more than 4^ in. at Kensington, while 

 one end of the Serpentine received less than i in. and 

 the other more than 3 in. 



The rain over the British Isles seems to fall into a 

 watertight compartment ; it is perhaps captious to 

 complain that a book on our own rainfall does not discuss 

 the rainfall of the Continent, but it would be of much 

 interest to know how our rainfall links up with that on 

 the other side of the Channel. Possibly the very 

 excellence of the work of the British Rainfall Organiza- 

 tion under Dr. Symons, Dr. Mill, and Mr. Salter himself, 

 has made our own information so adequate that it 



