268 



NA TURE 



[July 17, 1890 



fewer original terms in the French scientific vocabu- 

 lary than in either English or German ; fewer modern 

 writings of value in the medical literature of France than 

 in either of the other great European literatures ; and 

 fewer students of medical literature in French-speaking 

 •countries than in either English or German-speaking 

 countries. The Russian element might also without very 

 much loss be eliminated ; for as there are no Russian- 

 French references it can be of little assistance to anyone 

 reading Russian literature, and will only be of value to 

 the limited class of Russian students of other literatures, or 

 the still more limited class of foreigners writing medical 

 works in Russian. 



The special function of a work like the present is to 

 supplement, not to supplant, the ordinary dictionary ; 

 therefore such a work should be reduced to as small a 

 bulk as possible. To this end there should be as little 

 overlap as possible, as there is no advantage in including 

 such words as are to be found in the ordinary dictionaries, 

 unless there is something specific in their use to be ex- 

 plained. In the work before us, this principle has not 

 been adopted, and its size has consequently been unduly 

 enlarged by the introduction of many common words 

 which have no such peculiarities. Thus, taking at random 

 the pages 184-5, there are the words Heirath, Heavy, 

 Heat, Heating, Hebung, Hebel, Heften, Heifer, Height, 

 Heiss, Heizung, Helfen, Hell, Helm, Hembra, Hemd, 

 Heaviness, Heiter, Helios. In these pages alone, one- 

 fourth of the entries are common dictionary -words. (By 

 inadvertence, Helios, the sun, is said to be Latin.) Turning 

 at random to another page (445) there are seventeen words 

 in a row— Wave, Wax, Weak, Weaken, &c.— of the same 

 description. One might, perhaps, defend the introduction 

 of the word " Stays " in the sense of corset, but one does 

 not see why " Star " (dtoile) or " Stamp " (timbre) should 

 have space devoted to them. 



By rigid adherence to a definite order of languages in 

 the enumeration of synonyms, the bulk of the work has 

 also been largely increased. Much space would have been 

 saved, and the utility of the book by no means impaired, 

 if, when the same word was used for the same idea in two 

 languages, instead of the repetition of the word the ini- 

 tials indicating thelanguages had been prefixed toone entry 

 of the word. Thus, instead of wasting three lines with " E. 

 Opodeldoc, soap-liniment ; G. Opodeldoc ; I. Opodeldoc," 

 or two lines with " I. Organo ; S. Organo," E. G. and I. 

 might have been prefixed to the one, and I. and S. to the 

 other. There is no gain of clearness in the tabulation, 

 and a distinct loss of handiness ; for it is especially true in 

 the case of a dictionary that the greater the book the 

 greater the evil. 



While in most cases the author has confined himself to 

 the enumeration of synonyms, there are some words to 

 which he has appended definitions. The principle upon 

 which words have been selected for this distinction does not 

 seem apparent ; for instance, it was surely unnecessary to 

 define " Faux (f fausse), adj., qui n'est pas vrai." Some of 

 the definitions are curious ; thus, " delusion " is defined as 

 '*' a belief in something incredible to sane people, resulting 

 from diseased working of the brain convolutions." It is 

 doubtless right that " Daft " should appear in a polyglot 

 dictionary, but it can scarcely be reckoned as English, and 

 is as much deserving of having its nationality indicated 

 NO. 108 1, VOL. 42] 



as " Knocked up," which is given as " (en Am^rique) 

 enceinte." 



In a few cases inconsistencies of spelling have eluded 

 the corrector's eye : thus, the adjective " Lacrymalis " is 

 accurately given, but a few lines below the neuter form 

 appears as " Os lachrymale " ; Aneurysm is spelled with 

 an i ; but oversights of this kind are very few. 



The author has adopted in some cases the useful plan of 

 marking with an asterisk those words under which the full 

 synonymy is given. In a few instances this has become 

 misplaced ; thus for the Latin " Caduca" the equivalent 

 " membrana decidua * " is given, but there is no such entry 

 under " membrana," and opposite " Decidua " there is 

 simply the French synonym "caduque," which is the 

 heading to which the star should have been appended. 



There are some words which one would have expected 

 to have place in such a work that are not to be found. 

 Ache, Aching, Acromegaly, Caul, Limbus, Limbic, Lobe, 

 Monoplegia, Laparotomy, are a few of these. Black 

 alder is given, but neither black wash nor black draught. 

 Red precipitate. Citrine ointment, Daffy's elixir, are 

 surely as deserving of place as Dover's or James's or 

 Gregory's powder. 



Fault-finding is at all times an ungrateful task, but it 

 becomes especially unpleasant when the subject is a work 

 of real merit, and we have indicated these weaknesses 

 so that in subsequent editions the usefulness of the work 

 may be increased. If its size were diminished by the 

 exclusion of ordinary dictionary-words, by the better 

 grouping of those that are identical, and by the judicious 

 excision of unnecessary definitions, a portable, useful work 

 would be produced, which we doubt not would find its 

 place on the desk of the majority of students of foreign 

 medical literature. 



Alex. Macalister. 



MASKS FROM NEW GUINEA AND THE 

 BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO. 

 Masken von Neu Guinea und dem Bismarck Archipel. 

 By A. B. Meyer. Konigliches Ethnographisches 

 Museum zu Dresden. Band VII. Foho, pp. 15, 

 Plates 15. (Dresden: Stengel and Markert, 1889.) 



DR. A. B. MEYER has written the seventh of the 

 series of fine publications of the Royal Ethno- 

 graphical Museum of Dresden which are brought out 

 under his direction. He has selected for description and 

 illustration the masks from New Guinea and the Bis- 

 marck Archipelago which are to be found in the collection 

 under his care. The descriptions are as a rule very 

 brief, but they are to the point, and indicate the zoological 

 training of the author. The latter is shown not only by 

 the precision of the descriptions, but also by the addition 

 of the generic name to the animals represented by the 

 masks or used in their adornment. Of the 83 specimens 

 in the Dresden Museum, 61 have been illustrated in this 

 memoir in a most admirable manner by a photographic 

 process the excellence of which leaves little to be desired. 

 On comparing these photographs with woodcuts of 

 similar objects, the advantage of the former is at once 

 apparent, as the texture of the various substances used in 

 the manufacture of the masks is faithfully rendered, and 



