92 



NA TURE 



[March 24, 1910 



HYGIENE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

 Why Worry? By Dr. G. L. Walton, Pp. 275. 



(London : W. Heinemann, 1909.) Price 2s. 6d. net. 

 Self-Help for Nervous Women : Familiar Talks of 



Economy in Nervous Expenditure. By Dr. J. K. 



Mitchell. Pp. 202. (London : W. Heinemann, 1909.) 



Price 2s. 6d. net. 



Ml'CH that a few generations ago it was usual 

 to attribute to disorder of conduct is, by many, 

 now placed in the category of functional nervous dis- 

 turbance, and concomitantly it has been sought to 

 relieve judicial and ecclesiastical officers of their duties 

 and to devolve them upon the medical profession. In 

 the two small books under review we find, expressed 

 in popular language, that which amounts to a series 

 of short sermons written by medical men, and for^ 

 the most part addressed to those who are suffering 

 from the effects of a lack of self-control. For one of 

 our authors it is " not his aim to transform the busy 

 man into a philosopher of the indolent and contem- 

 plative type," but to enable him to do his work effec- 

 tivelv by eliminating undue solicitude. The other 

 defends himself from the possible criticism that his 

 advice is not new- We cannot suppose any such 

 defence will be necessary. The advice proffered is that 

 of Epictetus, Marcus Aureiius, and Seneca, but stops 

 short, we may presume out of respect for the attitude 

 of current science towards current religion, at the 

 plane of these philosophers. 



Dr. Mitchell points out how some of the conspicuous 

 and peculiar virtues of women may become sources 

 of trouble. Strong affections and sympathy are apt 

 to lead to emotional excess, and such excess, 

 whether spent in grief, love, hate, or ambition, is 

 the most extravagant form of nervous expenditure, and 

 may eventuate in bankruptcy. A very frequentlv 

 predisposing cause of nervousness is the too ready 

 yielding to emotional expression, along with the cul- 

 tivation of an excessive manifestation of emotion in 

 speech and manner. Many women account it an 

 attraction to give way to tears for trifling pains, or to 

 loud complaints expressed in exaggerated language 

 about small annoyances, and it is pointed out to these 

 that to endure the smaller inevitable woes with 

 equanimity is to form a habit which shall be of 

 immense service when the larger troubles arise. 



Much useful adv-ice is given upon those physical 

 causes which tend to develop nervous manifestations, 

 or to exaggerate them, when they are already present. 

 On one hand there is a large number of persons who 

 attribute many trifling derangements of various 

 organs to their "nerves," and, on the other hand, 

 there are others who fail to recognise their disorders 

 as being nervous in origin until severe mental symp- 

 toms arise, and each class will find the information 

 which may be gathered from these books of great 

 help. Due attention, neither too prolonged nor too 

 scanty, to the hygiene of the nervous system will in 

 the future doubtless go as far as prophylactic hygiene 

 has already gone in connection with the other 

 systems, and it must be recognised that the educa- 

 tion of the child is in this connection of paramount 

 importance. Something between Spartan severity and 

 NO. 2108, VOL. 83] 



the opposite extreme, to which there seems to be a 

 serious danger of our passing, is the educational goal 

 to which we should press, to the development of that 

 degree of self-control which shall avert the nervous 

 weakness which issues in each petty emotion usurping 

 entire control over the body. 



For those who are "nervously " disposed we can 

 ask for no better advice than that given in the small 

 volumes before us, and we should certainly feel as- 

 sured that those who would read the books and 

 would endeavour to act upon the suggestions 

 therein contained were well on the road to recovery. 

 Unfortunately, there is an enormous residue of 

 patients who will listen to no advice, though they pay a 

 man to give it them, and yet another class which, 

 while recognising the advice given to be sound, seems 

 wholly incapable of the amount of self-help requisite 

 to acting upon it. 



MYCOLOGICAL WORKS. 

 (i) Researches on Fungi. By Prof. A. H. Reginald 

 BuUer. Pp. xi + 287. (^London: Longmans, Green . 

 and Co., 1909.) Price 12s. 6d. net. *j 



(2) Die Wiirzelpilze der Orchideen, ihre Kultur tind ihr ' 

 Lehen in der Pfianze. By Dr. Hans Burgeff. Pp. 



iv + 220; 3 plates, and 38 figs, in text. (Jena: 

 Gustav Fischer, 1909.) Price 6.50 marks. 



(3) Fungi and How to Know Them: an Introduction 

 to Field Mycology. By E. W. Swanton. Pp. 

 xi + 2io. (London: Methuen and Co., 1909.) Price 

 6s. net. 



(i)T~\R. BULLER'S investigations, undertaken with 

 i->' the object of throwing light upon the pro- 

 duction, liberation, and dispersion of spores in the 

 group of fungi known as the Hymenomycetes, breaks 

 new ground, and, as usual in such instances, will 

 undoubtedly form the starting point of future re- 

 search on the part of many students. A brief sketch 

 of the components of a typical hymenium or spore- 

 bearing surface are first dealt with. It is pointed out 

 that swollen gill-margins serve to separate the gills, 

 otherwise the spores could not be shed. This may be 

 true in those instances where thickened gill edges 

 exist, but in at least seventy-^ve per cent, of known 

 agarics the edge of the gills is not in the least 

 thickened. 



Under nuclear phenomena it is pointed out that the 

 passage of the nucleus from the basidium through the 

 very narrow sterigma into the spore affords striking 

 evidence of protoplasmic plasticity. This point has 

 been previously emphasised by Wager. The classifica- 

 tion of the Agaricineae according to spore colour is 

 dubbed as a purely artificial arrangement, but no valid 

 reason for this statement is forthcoming. The author 

 does not appear to realise that what the systematist 

 understands by black spores are spores thrown down 

 in the mass; no spores are black, even under the 

 microscope, but they may be opaque, and consequently 

 appear to be black. 



In a work devoted to research it is generally as- 

 sumed that the author is conversant with what has 

 been done previously on the same subject; this, how- 

 ever, does not hold good in the present instance; for 



