574 



NA TURE 



[August 15, 1901 



those influences which tend to do harm. Many details 

 in the practical work of the school are of the greatest 

 hygienic importance, and these can only be directed by 

 the teacher, who should recognise that it is the first duty 

 of an educational system to promote good health among 

 the scholars, and, indeed, that the success of any par- 

 ticular school is reflected in the physical health of those 

 attending it as well as in their mental attainments. 



" K Manual of School Hygiene " consists of two parts. 

 In Part i., written by Prof E. W. Hope, there are chapters 

 upon site and soil, the school building, air, ventilation 

 and warming, food and clothing, sickness, the personal 

 aspect of infection, accidents and emergencies. Part ii. 

 is written by Mr. E. A. Browne, and deals with the care 

 of the eye, school furniture and writing, the air passages, 

 exercise, over-pressure and the general management of 

 health. The subjects of Part i. are not always treated 

 with sufficient detail to meet the purposes of an elemen- 

 tary text-book. For instance, it is not sufficient to state 

 that " other simple inlets for fresh air may be mentioned, 

 such as Tobin's tubes. Louvres, .Sherringham valves. 

 Cooper's discs, &c." (p. 33) : and again, that house drains 

 " should be laid at such an inclination as will secure a 

 velocity of not less than three feet per second, and the 

 diameter should be four or six inches in accordance with 

 the number of lavatories discharging into it '' (p. 10). 

 Many other instances could be quoted in which the 

 matter given will convey little real information to one 

 who already knows little or nothing of the subject. 

 Owing to a hasty revision of the proof sheets, the carbonic 

 acid of the general atmosphere is given as o'4 per cent, 

 on p. 16. 



The treatment of the subjects of Part ii. is wholly 

 excellent ; the matter is scientifically sound, clearly 

 written and sufficient, and it might well serve as a model 

 to other te.xt-books which deal with corresponding 

 branches of school hygiene. We would commend Mr. 

 Browne's definition of "over-pressure" as a very happy 

 one ; it is " a failure to reach the potentiality of the 

 bodily and mental strength of any given child" ; and 

 every school teacher would do well to keep before him 

 the writer's statement that "the holidays may be needed 

 for the teachers, they may be desirable for the mainten- 

 ance of home life and family ties, but they should be 

 entirely superfluous in the matter of health." 



The long range of subject-matter comprised within the 

 title, " School Hygiene," is also dealt with a little un- 

 evenly in Prof. Shaw's work. The book contains some 

 excellent chapters, notably those dealing with school 

 furniture, postures, physical exercises and handwriting ; 

 but those dealing with sites and foundations of schools 

 and sanitary fitments are somewhat poor, and generally 

 insufficient. The reader will be puzzled by the reference, 

 in the chapter dealing with ventilation, to "the well-known 

 device of placing a board between the sashes of the 

 window," and the scientific reader will not approve of the 

 statement that the soil of the site should be free from 

 organic matter. The book, however, is one which 

 contains a great deal of valuable and well-expressed 

 material, and it should be read by all those whose duty 

 it is to be conversant with the subject of school hygiene. 

 It is well printed, excellently illustrated, and contains a 

 good bibliographical appendix. 

 NO. 1659, VOL. 64] 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Illustratiotis of t!te Botany of Captain Cook's J^oya^^e 

 Round the World in H. M.S. '^ E?ideavo!ir" in 1768- 

 1771. By the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks and Dr. 

 Daniel Solander, with Determinations by James 

 Britten, F.L.S., Senior Assistant, Department of 

 Botany, British Museum. Part II.: Australian Plants. 

 (London : Printed by order of the Trustees of the 

 British Museum, 1901.) 

 The first part of this work was noticed in Nature, Ixii. 

 p. 547, October 1900, to which we may refer for explana- 

 tions of its scope and character, as well as for some 

 criticisms of the nomenclature and other points. The 

 present part consists of plates loi to 343, with descriptive 

 letterpress, and illustrates the natural orders Myrtaceae to 

 Labiata;, arranged after Bentham and Hookei"'s "Genera 

 Plantarum." When complete, this work will be a great help 

 to the botanists of East Australia, as it will comprise a con- 

 siderable selection of the plants of the coast region from 

 Cape Howe to Cape York. Almost all the natural orders 

 are represented, though somewhat unequally. Thirteen 

 genera of Myrtaceet are figured, for example, and they 

 include eight which are characteristically Australian. 

 Nine species of the delicate and elegant genus Utricularia 

 are also among those represented. In the way of names, 

 such familiar genera as Barri?iotonia, Careya, Sesieviuin, 

 Sperinacoce, Olearia, IVaJdenbcrgia, Trichodesma, Clero- 

 de?tdron and Plectranthus are superseded by the 

 obscure and usually less euphonious appellations of 

 Huttiini, Ctimbia, Halimum, Tardai'cl, Shawia, Cervi- 

 cina, Borraginoides, Siphonanthns and Geivnanea, re- 

 spectively, on the ground of priority, often for a single 

 species. Fortunately for the ordinary botanist and 

 gardener, these and numerous other changes are not bind- 

 ing, and most of them are not recognised by Kevv, Berlin 

 and other botanical establishments which greatly in- 

 fluence the horticultural world. But the saviours of the 

 familiar names are the nurserymen, who are careful not 

 to mislead and mystify their customers by using fresh 

 names for old plants. W. Botting Hemsley. 



Essays on the Theory of Numbers. I. Contimnty and 

 Irrational Numbers. II. The Nature and Meaning 

 of Numbers. By Richard Dedekind. Authorised 

 translation by W. W. Beman. Pp. 116. (Chicago: 

 The Open Court Publishing Co. ; London . Kegan 

 Paul and Co., Ltd., 1901). 



In the first of these tracts Prof Dedekind gives a theory 

 of irrational numbers and of the arithmetical continuum 

 which is logically perfect, and in form, perhaps, more 

 simple and direct than any other which has been or 

 could be suggested ; in the second he proceeds, by a 

 marvellous chain of subtle inferences, from the idea of a 

 manifold (or system of distinguishable objects in the 

 widest sense) to the series of natural numbers and the 

 elementary operations of arithmetic. It is to be hoped 

 that the translation will make the essays better known to 

 English mathematicians ; they are of the very first im- 

 portance, and rank with the work of Weierstrass, 

 Kronecker and Cantor in the same field. The trans- 

 lation is rather painfully literal, and does not convey 

 much idea of the graceful style of the original ; but it is, 

 on the whole, correct. On p. 46, 1. 15, "hereafter" is a 

 wrong rendering ol hierauf ; on p. 52, 1. iS, i^/) and j' 

 should be \|'(S') and S ; p. 61, last line but one, " such " is 

 superfluous. On p. 34 there is an amusing complication 

 of errors. What the author means is, " In this sense " 

 (or " in the light of this fact "), " which I wish to express 

 by the words liei <) <'<i'^/jmj7os dpi^/ii;ri'fei, formed after a 

 well-known saying, I hope," &c. The reference is to the 

 motto on the title-page of the German edition, which was 

 coined by the author in imitation of the Platonic dictum, 

 del o ^eoy 7f0)/nerpi^€t. M. 



