1857.] REVIEWS. 219 



He says : " One is very apt, on first starting, to get a host of 

 shell and star fish, actinias and other zoophytes, and plunge 

 them by the dozen into a vessel fitted to maintain in a proper 

 state of health scarcely half-a-dozen creatures of ordinary size. 

 It is no wonder, when we consider the conditions necessary to 

 their existence, that after a few hours the greater number are 

 {sic) dead." 



It is devoutly to be wished that landlords and other friends of 

 humanity would take a leaf out of Mr. Stark's book, con it well, 

 and bethink themselves that human creatures cannot obtain con- 

 ditions fitted to maintain them in a proper state of health when 

 twenty-four are lodged in a space unfitted to accommodate more 

 than half-a-dozen. It is true that the human subject is able to 

 endure more privations, both of air and sustenance, than these 

 modern fashionable pets of the drawing-room; but there is a 

 limit of endurance beyond which even the constitution of men, 

 women, and children must suffer loss, and some individuals may 

 perish. Mr. StarVs book is warmly commended to those who 

 take an interest in these not unuseful observations and studies. 



Lawson's Microscopical Series of Commercial and Medical 

 Products. 



We have much pleasure in noticing this series of preparations, 

 for hereby useful knowledge is difiiised. The first series (Nos. 

 1-24) is now ready for delivery, embracing the more important 

 articles of food, viz. those in which the starch granule affords the 

 distinctive characters. As critics we take an exception to the 

 term medical. We have two adjectives from the same root, me- 

 deor. The one above is medicus, which, used substantively, 

 means a physician. The other, which is the proper one to qua- 

 lify drugs or prescriptions in general, is from medicina, a medi- 

 cine, adjective medicinal. High authorities, however, even in 

 Edinburgh (once called the modern Athens), employ both medical 

 and medicinal indiscriminately ; and our author may avail him- 

 self of the maxim laid down by Horace, and plead practice, or 

 old use and wont : — Vult usus, 



" Quern penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi." 



