NATURE iMay 4, 1882 



reprint of a lecture course, and may be fairly said to fulfil 

 well the object proposed in the preface. Great pains has 

 evidently been taken to obtain data of actual examples of 

 important works within the above scope; the series of 

 twenty-one well-executed large plates of these is a most 

 valuable feature of the work. The get-up of the work, 

 being issued from the Clarendon Press, is of course excel- 

 lent ; the number of folds in the plates is an inconvenience 

 (few have less than six, and one has ten folds), which 

 might have been obviated by placing fewer diagrams on 

 each plate. A very useful feature is the addition at the 

 end of each chapter of a short summary of its matter, 

 with many good practical remarks. 



The work opens with a chapter on the physics of the 

 subject, followed by one on discharge-measurement, then 

 by one on general principles. Then come seven chapters 

 on various appliances and details, viz., dredgers, piling, 

 foundations, locks, inclines, lifts, fixed and movable 

 weirs, dams, and movable bridges. Then follow one 

 chapter on inland canals, one on great ship canals, one 

 on protection from floods, four on improvement of tidal 

 rivers, and lastly, one on the improvement of the mouths 

 of tideless rivers. 



From the great variety of subjects treated of in a com- 

 pass of 322 pages, the treatment is sometimes unequal. 

 The descriptions of the newest forms of the various 

 appliances are, together with their illustrative plates, very 

 interesting and instructive. But perhaps the most valu- 

 able part of the whole work is the last five chapters on the 

 difficult and important subject of the improvement of 

 river mouths ; the few guiding principles that can be said 

 to be known about so obscure a question are well brought 

 out from the study of grand examples. The subject of 

 discharge-measurement is not adequately treated : a 

 reference to the recently-published (1881) " Roorkee 

 Hydraulic Experiments" would probably have materially 

 influenced this chapter in giving less importance to 

 current-meters, and more to floats (especially tube-rods), 

 and in the_ entire rejection of the old Che"zy formula, 

 V= Cx \'PS, with a constant value of C. The chapter 

 on inland canals is also (perhaps unavoidably) sketchv : 

 thus the description of Indian canals covers only two 

 pages, many of them being simply named. 



Allan Cunningham 



Galeni Pergamensis de Temperamentis ct de Jnagi/ali 

 Intemperic Libri ins, Thoma Linacre Anglo Interprets, 

 1521. Reproduced in exact Facsimile. With an Intro- 

 duction by Joseph Frank Payne, M.D. (Cambridge: 

 Macmillan and Bowes ) 

 The book before us is one of a series of facsimile reprints 

 of eight books, published in the years 1521-22, by John 

 Siberch, at the first press established at Cambridge ; and 

 it would appear, that after the issue of this series, no 

 other works were published there until the year 1585, 

 when a law was passed, limiting the printing of books to 

 London and the Universities. 



The revival of classical literature which swept over 

 Europe towards the close of the fifteenth century, effected 

 a complete revolution in the theory of medicine, as well as 

 in philosophy. English scholars of that period were, as a 

 rule, unacquainted with Greek, the few exceptions being 

 men who had studied at the Italian Universities ; among 

 these was Thomas Linacre, a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, 

 who, about the year 1495, visited Italy in the suite of | 

 Selling, when the latter was appointed envoy to the Pope, 1 

 and, after being a fellow student with the sons of Lorenzo I 

 de Medici, under Politiano and Chalcondylas, proceeded 

 to his degree of Doctor of Medicine at Padua. On his , 

 return to England, he brought with him the reputation of 

 being one of the most elegant and accurate scholars of 

 the day. Shortly afterwards he was appointed tutor to ' 

 Prince Arthur, and became Court physician on the acces- 

 sion of Henry VIII. to the throne. The physicians of 



the day were mostly ecclesiastics, but no restriction was 

 placed on the practice of medicine by persons, however 

 ignorant of its principles ; and Linacre, with the view of 

 remedying the abuses that prevailed, devoted his fortune, 

 amassed by the sale of the clerical livings to which 

 he had been presented, to the foundation, in the year 

 15 18, of the Royal College of Physicians, which, under 

 its charter, had power to regulate the practice of medi- 

 cine in the neighbourhood of London. It is interesting 

 to know, that according to Linacre, a physician should 

 be "a grave and learned person, well read in Galen, 

 respecting but not bowing down to the prestige of the 

 Universities ; claiming for his own science a dignity apart 

 from, but not conflicting with that of theology ; looking 

 upon surgeons and apothe:aries with charity, and not 

 without a sense of his own superiority." 



The Galenical theories of humours and temperaments 

 formed the groundwork on which the Greeks based their 

 practice of medicine, and Linacre to bring these theories 

 within the reach of all students of medicine translated 

 into Latin six of Galen's works, among which were the 

 " De Temperamentis " and " De Inxquali Intemperie," 

 now before us, thus helping to replace the mysticism and 

 empiricism of the Arabians by the ac.-umulated observa- 

 tions recorded by Hippocrates and Galen. In these 

 works it is assumed that to the four humours, blood, 

 pituite, yellow bile, and black bile, there are the corre- 

 sponding properties, moist-heat, moist-cold, dry-heat, and 

 dry-cold ; and that between health and disease there are 

 four temperaments, characterised by an excess of either 

 one or two of the cardinal qualities, heat, cold, moisture, 

 and dryness. These were the only external influences acting 

 on the body the ancients could recognise, as they were 

 ignorant of the chemical processes of respiration, of the 

 constitution of the atmosphere, and of electricity, of which 

 we now take account. These theories are elaborated, and 

 further, it is indicated that medicines may be classified 

 according to their heating, drying, cooling, or moistening 

 qualities, and should be administered so as to temper the 

 errors of the humours in disease ; and though the work 

 has ceased to have a practical value for physicians, it yet 

 remains of interest to the student of humoral pathology, 

 and of the philosophy of the middle ages. 



Students are indebted to the enterprise of Messrs. 

 Macmillan and Bowes for the reprint of this scarce work, 

 which was the first book containing Greek characters 

 printed in England, and we are glad to learn that the 

 same publishers propose shortly to issue the remainder 

 of the series. The book is edited by Dr. J. F. Payne, and 

 is prefaced by a portrait and an admirable life of Linacre. 



Rhopalocera Malayana: a Description of the Butterflies oj 

 the Malay Peninsula. By W. L. Distant. (London : 

 W. L. Distant, care of West, Newman and Co., C4 

 Hatton Garden, E.C.) 



We have received the first part of this handsome work, in 

 which it is proposed to describe and figure all the species 

 of butterflies which inhabit the Malay Peninsula and the 

 islands of Penang and Singapore. Forty-four coloured 

 figures of butterflies are given in this part, occupying four 

 plates of large quarto size : and they are most admirably 

 executed in chromo-lithography. Some of the figures, 

 indeed, are hardly to be distinguished from good hand 

 colouring. The descriptions are full and careful, and 

 much judgment is shown in using, as far as possible, old 

 and well-established names, and in rejecting needless 

 sub-divisions of the genera. It is expected that the work 

 will be completed in six or seven parts, forming a hand- 

 some quarto volume ; and we trust that the author may 

 obtain numerous subscribers in our wealthy colonies of 

 Singapore and Penang, as well as at home, to encourage 

 him to complete the work in the same full and careful 

 manner as he has commenced it. 



As most of the butterflies of the larger Malay Islands 



