76 



NA TURE 



[November 23, 1899 



Abyssinian chief at Jellem, where it was received with 

 great state ; but two days later Bottego's Abyssinians 

 were invited to desert, and in the night twelve men 

 escaped, taking away two cases of cartridges. At day- 

 break the Italians found their camp surrounded ; they 

 attempted to cut their way to open country, and were 

 attacked. They fought with desperate courage against 

 overwhelming odds. Bottego was killed, Citerni was 

 wounded and captured, and Vannutelli compelled to 

 surrender. Fortunately Major Nerrazzini was then in 

 Addis-Abeba arranging the final details of the peace 

 which had been concluded between Italy and Abyssinia. 

 At his intervention the two officers were promptly 

 released, and they returned to Europe through Addis- 

 Abeba, where they were courteously and sympathetically 

 received by Menelik. 



Meanwhile the second part of the expedition had 

 fared as disastrously. Dr. Sacchi had left the main 

 party at Lake Stefanie, and crossed the Borana country, 

 intending to reach Lake Abbaia by a new route. But 

 his party had a fight with a force of Abyssinians a little 

 to the south of that lake. Sacchi was killed, apparently 

 on February 7, 1897. Part of his diaries have been 

 recovered, and they contain many interesting notes on 

 the geology of the country traversed. 



In spite, however, of these disasters, the results of the 

 journey were of great importance, and they are admir- 

 ably summarised in the present volume, which has been 

 written by the two survivors Vannutelli and Citerni. The 

 book is interestingly written ; the incidents are graphic- 

 ally related ; and the details are sufficiently full to be 

 of great scientific interest. Geographically the main 

 achievement of the expedition was the final solution of 

 the Omo problem, and proof of the unity of the northern 

 and southern parts of the Erythrean Rift Valley. The 

 basins of lakes Stefanie, Abbaia and Zuai connect the 

 well-marked depressions of Lake Rudolf and the Hawash. 

 The atlas that accompanies the volume is not only a 

 complete revision of the geography of the region, but 

 contains extensive new surveys. Ethnographically, 

 the expedition has collected much new information 

 regarding the little-known Somali and Galla clans of the 

 Juba country and of the mixed Nilotic-Hamitic races 

 around the northern part of Lake Rudolf. The zoological 

 collections, in spite of losses, were very large, and have 

 been previously described in a series of reports by 

 specialists, and in the present volume there is a general 

 summary of results by Prof. Gestro. 



The geological collections made by the expedition are 

 described by d'Ossat and Millosevich, who from Dr. 

 Sacchi's notes have been able to prepare a geological 

 map of the Omo and Upper Juba. The meteorological 

 records, which seem to have been very carefully taken, 

 are edited and discussed by Dr. Peyra. The present 

 volume is therefore not only a narrative of an adventurous 

 expedition, but a most important contribution to the 

 geography and natural history of Eastern Africa. It 

 not only confirms Bottego's reputation as one of the 

 most daring and successful of Italian African explorers, 

 but shows him to be a man of wide scientific sympathies 

 and attainments. His friends have at least the consola- 

 tion of knowing that his life has not been laid down 

 in vain. J. W. G. 



NO. 1569, VOL. 61] 



MODERN SURGERY. 

 Surgery: a Treatise for Students and Practitioners. 

 By Thos. Pickering Pick, Consulting Surgeon to St. 

 George's Hospital. Pp. xix -f- 1176. (London : Long- 

 mans, Green, and Co., 1899.) 



IT is always a matter of satisfaction when a senior 

 member in any profession writes a text-book, for the 

 seniors who have attained to a high position have had 

 unrivalled opportunities of practice which renders their 

 opinions of the greatest value. Mr. Pick is therefore to be 

 highly commended for the completion of his self-imposed 

 task. The book contains, he tells us, the substance of 

 the lectures which he has delivered at St. George's 

 Hospital for fifteen years, and is the outcome of his 

 experience as a hospital surgeon and teacher of surgery 

 for nearly thirty years. It is worthy of comparison 

 with the world-renowned text-book of surgery written 

 by Erichsen, which has hitherto been the most satis- 

 factory of all the English surgical works, and it 

 bears the comparison well, for it is written on very 

 similar lines. Mr. Pick's treatise has the advantage of 

 being an original work, whilst Sir John Erichsen's has 

 been adapted repeatedly to present needs, and however 

 skilfully such adaptations are made they lack somewhat 

 of the savour which first gives a successful book its 

 vogue. Mr. Pick's work, too, is contained in a single 

 volume, whilst Sir John Erichsen's, by a process of 

 incorporation and the requirements of successive editions, 

 has become two bulky volumes. 



Mr. Pick has brought his book to a most successful 

 issue. It contains a clear and concise account of modern 

 surgery, not overweighted by detail, and yet sufficiently 

 full to be an accurate guide both to the student and to 

 the medical practitioner who can only afford a single 

 work in each department of his profession. Mr. Pick is 

 old enough to have been educated in the days of sup- 

 purative surgery, but his actual practice has been carried 

 out in the modern operating theatre and wards where anti- 

 septic surgery reigns supreme. He is able, therefore, to 

 contrast the old with the new systems, and one of the 

 charms of his book is the skilful manner in which he 

 selects the good points in the practice of the older 

 surgeons and adapts them to the present regime. 



Where all is good it is difficult to select one article 

 more than another for praise, but the influence of the 

 great surgical school attached to St. George's Hospital is 

 perhaps best marked in the chapter on diseases and 

 injuries of the head ; whilst Mr. Pick's acknowledged 

 eminence in connection with the surgical diseases of 

 children, and in fractures and dislocations renders his 

 remarks on these subjects of especial value. 



The surgical pathology throughout the work is quite 

 consonant with modern teaching, and such errors as 

 may be present are rather errors of omission than of 

 commission. The recent summer has shown how large 

 a part gnat bites may play in the production of cellulitis 

 amongst the poorer and less healthy inhabitants of 

 towns. There is no mention of ossifying sarcoma of bone, 

 or of Pirrie's fracture ; whilst in describing the diatheses 

 or " complexions " it would be more accurate to speak 

 of them as being characteristic of persons predisposed 

 to tubercle rather than of the tuberculous individual. 



