October 21, 1915] 



NATURE 



20] 



(4) This book — -"Statics," by F. C. Fawdry — 

 an be confidently recommended. The problems 



dealt with come from house-buildings, bridge- 



luiilding, engineering-, and other human activi- 



'■s. W'e no longer meet the ridiculous and 



I fectly smooth elephant who balances him- 



If on a perfectly rough cricket ball. The 



Mid and simple methods of the engineer, hitherto 



^eluded from the school-book, now come to their 



< un, and the book discusses within the limits of 



150 pages the link polygon, Bow's notation, the 



bending of beams, brake horse-power, and three 



dimensional problems, and discusses them well. 



1 he only fault we have to find is that the author 



cannot spell parallelepiped. 



(5) We scarcely know what to say about this 

 bdok of Examples in Physics. It is most 

 \ irtuous in drawing all its exercises from 

 luiman life, or at least from the laboratory. 

 There are none of the wicked old questions 

 that prevailed when an irresistible projectile used 

 to impinge on an immovable obstacle. But, after 

 all, what shall it profit a man to work through 

 all these virtuous questions and be unable to tell 

 a galvanometer from a lens? The examples 

 should surely go with work in the laboratory ; 

 and if a man works in a laboratory he finds his 

 own data there, and does not want to have them 

 supplied in a book. 



(6) This is a good, honest, plodding book, pro- 

 viding air the intellectual apparatus we are 

 entitled to get under the name of " Laboratory 

 -Mathematics," but scarcely with the clearness of 

 statement and crispness of effect that the ideal 

 l)Ook would have. The attempt to consider weight 

 and mass separately is somewhat ambitious for 

 a book of this range ; until quite an advanced 

 stage it is better for the student to be content 

 with one of them. Again the term "specific den- 

 sity" is unfortunately like "density" to use for 

 ^1) different a meaning as the author gives it, and 

 the distinction between "specific density" and 

 " specific gravity " is too subtle for the ordinary 

 mortal. D. B. M. 



OUR BOOKSHELF. 



' fuoehiasis and the Dysenteries. By Prof. L. P. 



I'hillips. Pp. xi + i47. (London: H. K. Lewis, 



1915.) Price 65. 6d. net. 

 Dysentery is a clinical term used to denote dis- 

 ease conditions running more or less the same 

 course, but dependent upon various aetiological 

 agents. The subject is one of great and growing 

 importance, and the advance in our knowledge 

 of it has of late been considerable, but the litera- 

 ture is much scattered. In the volume under 

 review Dr. Phillips has summarised the whole 

 sul'jcct, and has compiled a book which should be 

 NO. 2399, VOL. 96] 



of considerable value and assistance to all those 

 who have to deal with this disease. 



The various forms of dysentery are discussed 



I from the point of view of their causation, viz., 



j amoebiasis or amoebic infection, ciliate and 



I flagellate dysentery, bilharzial dysentery, and 



bacillary dysentery. Amoebic dysentery is caused 



by linfection with an amoebiform protozoon, now 



known as the Entamoeba histolytica. A full 



description is given of this parasite and of its 



differentiation from other forms of amoebae. There 



is so far as at present known only one organism 



causing amoebic dysentery, and this cannot be 



artificially cultivated, though several saprophytic 



forms seem to have been grown in the laboratory. 



There is undoubtedly a form of dysentery due 

 to infection by a ciliate organism, Balantidium 

 coli, and the disease is probably not so rare as 

 the published cases seem to show. Several 

 flagellate protozoa are also under suspicion as 

 causal agents in dysentery or dysenteric diarrhoea. 



A very chronic form of dysentery is associated 

 with bilharzial infection of the large intestine, 

 particularly in Egypt ; the parasite in this case is 

 a worm. Lastly, there is the bacillary form of the 

 disease, due to a bacillus of world-wide distribu- 

 tion, and apt to occur in epidemics, thus differing 

 from amoebic dysentery. 



Under each section, besides the description of 

 the parasites, the symptoms and treatment are 

 detailed so that this work forms a complete hand- 

 book on the subject of dysentery. A useful biblio- 

 graphy is appended. R. T. H. 



Alcoholometric Tables. By Sir Edward Thorpe. 



Pp. xiv + 91. (London: Longmans, Green and 



Co., 191 5.) Price 35. 6d. net. 

 The handy little book of alcohol tables prepared 

 by the late Dr. Stevenson has been out of print 

 now for several years, and a convenient volume, 

 arranged on similar lines and brought up to date, 

 has been a long-felt want. This is fully supplied 

 by the tables under notice, which were compiled 

 under Sir Edward Thorpe's directions at the 

 Government Laboratory. They are based, as 

 regards their main portion, upon the work of 

 Blagden and Gilpin, Drinkwater, Mendeleeff, and 

 the Kaiserliche Normal Eichungs Kommission. 

 The first table shows the percentage of alcohol 

 by weight and by volume, and the percentage of 

 fiscal proof spirit, in aqueous solutions of ethyl 

 alcohol of different specific gravities. The latter 

 are given to four places of decimals, but for the 

 even numbers only {e.g., o'9i72, 0-9174, etc.). 

 The one criticism suggested is whether it would 

 not have been worth while to include the odd 

 numbers as well. True, this would have made the 

 book about half as large again, but it would have 

 saved the user many small calculations. 



The other tables serve for the comparison of the 

 spirit values adopted for fiscal purposes in this 

 country with those of the principal foreign coun- 

 tries. They show the indications of Sikes's hydro- 

 meter, with the corresponding percentages of 

 British proof spirit, American proof spirit, and 

 alcohol as evaluated on the French, German, and 



