January 30, ig 19] 



NATURE 



42; 



hi we desire have the advantage over any 

 other sel which has been proposed that 1 1 1 * - ex- 

 planations based on them often explain tarts 

 before, and nol merely after, they have been dis- 

 covered. Bui the appreciation oi thai advantage 

 requires a scientific training which Lucretius did 

 not possess. 



We do not think, then, thai readers of Nature 

 will gain much benefil from Dr. Woods's treatise. 

 But the existence of such books may surest 

 some interesting reflections. The differences 

 which separate us from Dr. Woods appear in a 

 lesser degree between students of different 

 sciences, and they are likely to be accentuated by 

 the development of what Dr. Strong (2) rightly 

 calls the "new science" of "fundamental 

 physics." Physicists are abandoning the me- 

 chanical explanations, which were the basis of all 

 nineteenth-century science, in favour of those 

 which rest on the acceptance of some formal 

 mathematical principle; and in so doing they arc 

 undoubtedly widening the breach between them- 

 selves and others. It is not impossible that in 

 .1 few years the division between physics and 

 chemistry may be as wide as that which now 

 divides either from the philosophy of Dr. Woods 

 and his master. 



But, while Dr. Strong's title is encouraging, 

 we regret that we have derived even less edifica- 

 tion from his writings than from those of Dr. 

 Woods. Dr. Strong is a serious physicist, and 

 knows his subject, in spite of a few minor errors. 

 (Thus, a "magneton" is not a free pole, but a 

 doublet, and lead is not an "tsolrope," but an 

 "isotope," of RaG.) Hut he has carried com- 

 pression beyond the bounds of intelligibility; he 

 does not always explain even his notation, or the 

 meaning of his tables. Those of his chapters in 

 which he states the accepted results of modern 

 physics would be perfectly incomprehensible to 

 anyone not already familiar with the subject ; no 

 man can possibly expound the subject of radio- 

 activity in four pages. Intercalated among these 

 chapters, apparently at random, are others in 

 which the author expounds some new r theory 

 which establishes, by means of " radions " and 

 "electrocthons, " a connection between the Great 

 Unknown, mobile and immobile ether, the 

 gateways of the senses, ninety-two atomic 

 nuclei, and other familiar and unfamiliar con- 

 cepts. It may be merely the author's ex- 

 aggerated passion for brevity which makes these 

 pages a source of nothing but bewilderment to 

 us, tor occasionally a suggestive idea gleams 

 through the darkness. We would recommend 

 Dr. Strong first to re-write the chapter, sav, on 

 the Ritzian atom, so as to make it intelligible to 

 anyone scientifically educated, and then, having 

 had practice in expression, to return to the state- 

 ment of his original ideas. We would give him 

 one last hint : grammar is not inconsistent with 

 lucidity, and our language is not enriched by such 

 inventions as "illy" and "hvpotheticated. " 



\. R. C. 

 \m. 257O, VOL. 102"] 



APPLIED (NATOMY. 



Applied Anatomy : The ('(instruction <;/ the Human 

 Body considered in relation In its Functions, 

 Diseases, and Injur;, .. By Prof. Gwilym G. 

 Davis. Fifth edition. Pp. x + 630. (Phila- 

 delphia and London: J. I',. Lippincott Co., 

 1918.) Price 30s. net. 



I'll IS work is perhaps the most comprehensive 

 treatise upon applied anatomy in the 

 English language. Its outstanding merit is the 

 series of 631 figures, many of them in colour, 

 drawn by Mr. Erwin F. Paber. They are re- 

 markable, not merely for their diagrammatic 

 1 learness and accuracy, but also for their .pleasmg 

 artistic qualities. 



The book is cast in a somewhat conventional 

 mould, and gives a vast amount of detailed in- 

 formation of a clinical, as well as of an anatomi- 

 cal, nature. When one remembers how large a 

 part radiography plays in the teaching and prac- 

 tice of anatomy and surgery it is surprising to 

 find a work upon surgical anatomy without any- 

 X-ray photographs, especially when the need for 

 assistance in their interpretation is so often ex- 

 perienced by the surgeon. The notes upon the 

 arrangement of the lymphatics might with advan- 

 tage have been amplified. 



But the chief impression one gets from the 

 perusal of this book is the effect of the war upon 

 the surgeon's outlook. For it is scarcely conceiv- 

 able that so conventional a treatise as this could 

 have been produced in the year 1918 in any- 

 country which had had a prolonged experience of 

 military surgery. In dealing with many of the 

 anatomical problems which have daily engaged the 

 attention of our surgeons for more than four 

 years, this book will afford no help. For ex- 

 ample, little attempt is made to provide precise 

 information of the mode of distribution and the 

 variability of nerves, such as the majority of our 

 surgeons need for their daily work in these times. 

 It may be urged in extenuation that this book is 

 merely the new edition of a work of reference 

 for civilian surgeons in a country where experi- 

 ence of military injuries had not extended to the 

 home hospitals. But these reflections serve to 

 direct attention to the fact that a book on 

 applied anatomy, when grown to such dimensions 

 as Prof. Davis's treatise, is less useful to the 

 surgeon than an ordinary text-book of systematic 

 anatomy. In the course of practice, whether mili- 

 tarv or civilian, injury or disease may affect any 

 part of the body ; a really useful work of reference, 

 therefore, should provide full information con- 

 cerning the whole anatomy — in other words, it 

 should be a systematic treatise. 



What the surgeon really wants is the informa- 

 tion the anatomist can give him; but it is of vital 

 importance that the latter should take a b 

 view of bis functions, and, in writing : i ; - 

 books or treatises, remember that he is teaching 

 the structure of the living organism, and should 

 provide the sort of information that the surgeon 



