lOO 



NA 'JURE 



[December i, 1S98 



Under such circumstances nothing can be said by way 

 of criticism, except to remark that if all Mr. Romero's 

 matter is of the same quality as his description of rubber- 

 yielding trees on p. 378, the book stands in much need of 

 careful revision. J. R. J. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Practical Mechanics : an Elementary .Ifanual for the 

 Use of Students in Science and Technical Schools and 

 Classes. By Sidney H. Wells, Wh.Sc, .A..:M.Inst.C.E. 

 Pp. xii + 220. (London ; Methuen and Co., 1898.) 



This book is really a handbook for students who make 

 those quantitative experiments in a mechanical laboratory 

 which are now part of the Applied Mechanics Course of 

 the Science and Art Department. The laboratory system 

 of teaching this subject has passed through all its trials, 

 and has taken its rightful place, not merely in evening 

 science schools, but in the engineering classes of the 

 most pretentious technical institutions in every part of 

 the world. It seems to us that this little book will prove 

 to be a useful guide to teachers. .\ good teacher will 

 arrange his own methods ; he will probably design much 

 of his own apparatus, and he will write out with his own 

 hands the instructions to students using the apparatus, 

 giving up this most important part of his work to no 

 lieutenant, however clever and ingenious. He will, in 

 fact, arrange his apparatus to suit his students and the 

 character of the rest of his teaching. Even he, however, 

 must welcome a description of the apparatus and its uses 

 which have suggested themselves to such an experienced 

 teacher as Mr. Wells. 



We have one objection to this book, and it is serious. 

 The apparatus illustrates static laws of force, and force 

 is recognised as a space rate of the doing of work : but 

 we find nowhere any attempt to give to students the 

 fundamental notion of mechanics, that force is a time 

 rate of change of momentum. To supplement what Mr. 

 Wells has given, twenty pieces of well-known apparatus 

 mig;ht easily be mentioned which require no special 

 design to fit themselves to quantitative laboratory work, 

 and without a description of such apparatus it seems to 

 us that this book is very incomplete. J. P. 



Skiagraphic Atlas : showing the Development of the 

 Bones of the Wrist and Hand. For the use of students 

 and others. }5y John Poland, F.R.C.S. Pp. 40 and 

 Plates. (London : Smith, Elder, and Co., 1898.) 

 This handy volume is a reprint of a portion of a larger 

 work by its author ("A Practical Treatise on Traumatic 

 Separation of the Epiphyses." London : Smith, Elder, 

 and Co., 1898) which deals with the skiagraphy of the 

 wrist and hand, as revealing in situ the stages in ossifica- 

 tion of their supporting skeleton. There are nineteen 

 skiagraphs in all, which represent successive phases in 

 the process named at periods between and including the 

 first and seventeenth years, and as a frontispiece there is 

 added a woodcut delineating the isolated hand skeleton 

 at fifteen and a half years, with each bone fully named 

 for comparison with the body of the work. The skia- 

 graphs, with the exception of that of the hand of the 

 author's son, taken by Mr. Swinton, are the work of Mr. 

 C. Webster, and all are excellent and among the best we 

 have seen. A short introductory account is given of the 

 anatomy and growth periods of the several bony centres, 

 with accurate measurements where necessary ; and each 

 illustration is accompanied by a brief statement of its 

 salient features. Since, concerning these, some of the 

 author's observations are at variance with what is cus- 

 tomarily taught, his book cannot fail to be a useful work 

 of reference both to the anthropotomist and surgical 

 anatomist. The author remarks in his preface that he 

 hopes " in the near future all the bones of the body 



NO, I 5 18. VOL. 59] 



may be thus portrayed " ; and if he should be as suc- 

 cessful with the pelvis as he has been w ith the hand, wi 

 would earnestly recommend him and his publishers tc 

 lose no opportunity of making the work known to the 

 general public, and of thus forcing home facts which may 

 perchance be brought to bear upon the too prevalent 

 tendency towards premature cycling by young children, 

 which, if not checked by some such salutary means, 

 would seem likely to threaten the rising generation with 

 disaster. 



A Manual of Bucteriolo^y, Clinical and Applied. By 

 Richard T. Hewlett, M.D., M.R.C.P., D.P.H., &c., 

 Assistant in the Bacteriological Department, British 

 Institute of Preventive Medicine. Pp. viii -I- 439. 

 (London : J. and A. Churchill, 1898.) 

 This book should take a very creditable place amongst 

 the smaller manuals of bacteriology which have appeared 

 in recent years. The author has had considerable 

 acquaintance both with the practice and the teaching of 

 his subject, and he has formed just conclusions as to 

 what he should include in his book, and what he should 

 omit. He has included those methods and facts which 

 it is essential for the student to know, with a sufficient 

 amount of the abstract science to enable him to grasp 

 methods and facts intelligently : he has omitted a great 

 mass of scientific detail with which it is needless to 

 burden the student at the outset. The book is thus ol 

 moderate compass ; it is eminently practical, and its 

 aims are directed to clinical medicine and hygiene in 

 particular. The usual introductory chapters are short, 

 but explicit and accurate. Perhaps the chemistry of 

 bacteria and their products might have been accorded 

 more space, in view of its increasing importance ; but 

 the subject of nitrification is well and clearly treated. 

 Methods of cultivation and staining are so plainly pui, 

 that the volume becomes a sufficient handbook for 

 laboratory work. The structure and mode of use of 

 oil-immersion lenses is very properly described and 

 illustrated by diagrams. A short chapter on immunity 

 and antitoxins puts this difficult subject as lucidly before 

 the student as the present state of knowledge permits. 

 The principal pathogenic organisms are then described 

 in detail in some 150 pages. The facts are well put, and 

 appear up to date, though the order in which the different 

 bacteria are dealt with is somewhat erratic. Thus Bacillus 

 aerogenes capsulatus appears amongst pyogenic and 

 septic organisms ; while B. oedematis maligni, its close 

 ally, appears nine chapters further on amongst the 

 anaerobes. The enormous importance of streptococci 

 in clinical medicine should, we think, have led to some- 

 thing more than their summary treatment in about four 

 pages. The writer discusses the question of the 

 "pseudo-diphtheria " bacillus at some length, and evi- 

 dently inclines to the view that it maybe only a modified 

 diphtheria bacillus. Under the head of scarlet fever 

 the views of the veterinary profession as to the nature of 

 the so-called " Hendon disease " are adopted in prefer- 

 ence to those of the Local Government Board experts, 

 and this without any adequate discussion of the facts : 

 it would have been wiser, in a book of this sort, to omit 

 the question altogether. In the concluding chapters Dr. 

 Hewlett gives a short account of the bacteriology of 

 water, air, and soil, and also of sewage, milk, &c.. with a 

 description of the chief methods employed. Antiseptics 

 and disinfectants form the subject of another chapter, 

 and the volume concludes with an account of antitoxins, 

 vaccines, and other bacterial remedies. The illustrations 

 are mostly reproductions of microphotographs, and are 

 fairly good, though not unduly numerous. The book 

 appears to us, on the whole, to be one of the best of 

 the smaller manuals on bacteriology with which we are 

 acquainted, and may be taken by the student as a trust- 

 worthy guide for laboratory work. 



