May 19, 1910] 



NATURE 



zn 



technical . teacher enables him to put the book into a 

 succinct form, suitable alike for the worker and for 

 ihe student. The volume is also to be recommended 

 to the general seeker after knowledge of the printing 

 arts. 



'Slodern TclepliotograpJiy ; a Practical Manual of Work- 

 ing Methods and Application. By Captain Owen 

 Wheeler. Pp. 80. (London : Ross, Ltd., 1910.) 

 Price, paper, is. 6d.; bevelled boards, 2S. 6d. 



Capt.\in Owen Wheeler is an enthusiastic and suc- 

 cessful user of telephotographic lenses, and in this 

 small volume he sets down his experiences in plain 

 language, and gives the rules that he has found ser- 

 viceable. He refers only to the lenses issued by the 

 publishers, but this is the only drawback to an 

 eminently practical and useful treatise. Seeing that 

 the one advantage of a telephotographic lens is that 

 it gives the image on a larger scale, without the need 

 for an equivalent length of camera, and that it is as 

 applicable to near^ ^as to distant objects, the photo- 

 graphy of near objects is very meagrely dealt with. 

 But this is rather an advantage than otherwise, as it 

 indicates that the author treats only with those 

 matters of which he has had considerable experience. 

 The two details that the author's name is chiefly 

 associated with are the use of a hood in front of the 

 lens to cut off extraneous light, and the use of nega- 

 tive lenses of different powers for different magnifica- 

 tions, instead of trusting to variations in the length 

 of the camera. It is hardly too much to say that, 

 trivial as these details appear. Captain Owen Wheeler 

 has by means of them revolutionised the practice of 

 outdoor telephotography. He truly claims that his 

 photographs bear no sign of their special method of 

 production, the flatness and fog so often present being 

 completely obviated. The long hood that he first 

 caused to be available had a rectangular opening in 

 front, and was of liberal dimensions^here he seems 

 to refer only to telescoping tubes little, if any, larger 

 than the outside of the lens mount. If this is so, it 

 is distinctly a step backwards in efficiency, though the 

 aluminium tubes may be more appreciated bv the 

 manufacturing optician. Concerning the choice of 

 lenses, with an ordinary half-plate camera and a lens 

 of about seven inches focal length, and a camera 

 extension of fourteen inches, the author advises 

 negative lenses from about 25-inches to i-inch focal 

 length, the last giving an equivalent focal length 

 cf about 8 feet, or a magnification of about four- 

 teen diameters. The aperture of such a combination 

 obviously must be small, but he does not find diffrac- 

 tion to interfere vitally with definition, even at an 

 aperture of f,'48o. There are manv excellent illus- 

 trations in the book, and a final chapter on telephoto- 

 graphy as applied to the special requirements of the 

 army and navy. C. J. 



.4 Text-Book of Nervous Diseases. By Dr. W. Aldren- 

 Turner and T. Grainger Stewart.' Pp. xvii+607. 

 (London : J. and A. Churchill, 1910.) Price 185. net. 

 This book has been written for the purpose of provid- 

 ing the practitioner and senior student with a short 

 and practical account of the diseases of the nervous 

 system, and is not expected to take the place of the 

 larger works on the same branch of medicine. Owing 

 to the limitation placed upon the size of the book, the 

 description of certain disorders, such as mvxcedema 

 and acromegaly, usually contained in works of this 

 description, has been omitted. This we cannot but 

 regard as an advantage, for there seems no scientific 

 reason why diseases of ductless glands should be cata- 

 logued with diseases of the nervous system. 



It is of the utmost importance, in dealing with 



NO. 2 1 16, VOL. 83] 



organic nervous affections, that the student should 

 possess an efficient knowledge of anatomy, and be 

 acquainted with some methodical plan for the clinical 

 examination of the nervous system. We are happy 

 to find in this work a short but clear and satis- 

 factory description of the various tests which are 

 available to inform us as to whether a given system 

 is normal or not. There is no obfuscating mass of 

 detail from which the student has by long experience 

 to abstract the useful and eliminate the comparatively 

 unimportant, but a clear, succinct presentment of all 

 that is really essential. The anatomical chapters are 

 similarly well rendered. The book, so far as organic 

 nervous disorder is concerned, is singularly replete, 

 and we can think of no recognised affection which has 

 escaped adequate attention. Considering the relative 

 proportion of the incidence of organic and of the so- 

 called functional disorders, we cannot but regard it 

 as rather a pity that more space has not been devoted 

 to the symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of the latter 

 class. Herein, however, the authors are only following 

 the trend of British neurology, which has always been 

 rather in the direction of the study of organic disease. 

 In these days, when such an enormous amount of 

 work is being done by non-scientific bodies in the 

 treatment of functional maladies, it becomes very 

 necessary for the trained physician, with his infinitely 

 superior opportunities, to make himself familiar with 

 therapeutic measures suitable for such ailments. Only 

 in this way can unfortunate sufferers be saved from 

 those errors of diagnosis which untrained and self- 

 constituted professors of certain modes of therapeutics 

 are frequently making, and which are so often of fatal 

 consequence. The illustrations and diagrams with 

 which the book is garnished are admirable, and are 

 most helpful in illuminating the text. The work 

 cannot, we think, fail to be of assistance to those for 

 whom it is intended, that is, to the student and prac- 

 titioner. 



Australasian Medical Congress. Transactions of the 

 Eighth Session held in Melbourne, Victoria, 

 October, 1908. Vols, i., ii., iii. (Victoria : J. 

 Kemp, Melbourne, 1909.) 



These three volumes of transactions are sure evidence, 

 if that were needed, of the activity of our kinsfolk 

 over the sea in matters medical. It is quite impossible 

 in a short space to deal with their subject-matter, 

 which embraces the whole range of medicine, surgery 

 and gynaecology, anatomy and physiology*, pathology, 

 bacteriology and public health. 



Dr. Julian Smith discusses the opsonic test and its 

 applications to tuberculosis. He considers that in com- 

 petent hands opsonic determinations are trustworthy 

 and accurate, and in many cases invaluable as an 

 aid in diagnosis and a guide to therapeutic measures. 

 Various papers deal with tuberculin and sanatorium 

 treatment in tuberculosis. Prof. Welsh, Dr. Chap- 

 man, and Mr. Storey discuss some applications of 

 the precipitin reaction in the diagnosis of hydatid 

 disease. It was found by Welsh and Chapman that 

 the blood serum of a patient suffering from hydatid 

 disease, which is relatively common in .Australia, 

 gives a precipitate with the fluid of the hydatid cvst. 

 In the present paper the extension of the test by the 

 use of old hydatid fluids is discussed. Haemo- 

 gregarine parasites in a marsupial flying squirrel 

 and in the native cat are described by Drs. W'elsh, 

 Barling, Dalyell, and Burfitt, and Dr. Elkington 

 describes a new cestode worm (Dibothriocephalus 

 parvus) obtained from a Syrian patient. The volumes 

 are well printed, and illustrated with many excellent 

 plates. 



