422 



NA TURE 



[February i i, 1909 



the elements of \\ atc-r, until they combine with a base 

 which supplants the basic water " (vol. i., p. 26). A 

 large number of mistakes are made. " In the process 

 of digestion the carbohydrates are converted by the 

 saliva into cane sugar (maltose, Cj^H^jOj,) and 

 further into dextrose and levulose," both of which 

 are regarded as varieties of glucose (vol. ii., p. 268). 

 Fish oil is said to be a hj'drocarbon. There is a 

 considerable amount of confusion. Dyer's solvent in 

 soil analysis is variously stated to be 1 per cent, nitric 

 acid, I per cent, ammonium citrate solution (which 

 is in one place said to be a weak acid and in another 

 an alkali), and i per cent, citric acid. The bacterial 

 reduction of nitrates taking place in absence of air, 

 and the evolution of nitrogen from organic matter 

 decomposing in presence of air, get hopelessly con- 

 fused in the article on denitrification. In describing 

 calcium cyanamide, " the form of lime-nitrogen in 

 which the nitrogen is derived from the air," no dis- 

 tinction whatever is drawn between this substance 

 and the Notodden calcium nitrate ; the writer evidently 

 regards them as one and the same thing. Contra- 

 dictions are not infrequent; under nitrate of soda it 

 is stated that " soda never has been found to be of 

 appreciable manurial value," yet the same writer sixty 

 pages back was insisting on the advantage of manur- 

 ing mangolds with salt! The author has not much 

 faith in his own chemistry; he impresses on us that 

 there are " forces of vitality which in many cases 

 modify the action of chemical laws and even render 

 them abortive." 



It would be easy to multiply instances. The result 

 is all the more regrettable since it conveys an impres- 

 sion of general carelessness and inaccuracy which 

 would not be justified. These unfortunate mistakes 

 make the book an unsafe guide for the student, and 

 prevent it from taking a high place in agricultural 

 literature. It cannot, however, be urged that they are 

 likely to mislead the farmer in his practice. Even 

 with all their errors these articles make interesting 

 reading, and are calculated to show the farmer, if he 

 still needs showing, that there is something in the 

 application of science to practice, and thus to clear 

 the way for the county council lecturer or the agri- 

 cultural college. E. J. Russell. 



THE CAMPAICX AGAINST TUBERCULOSIS. 

 The Prevetition of Ttibcrculosis. Bv Dr. .-Xrthur 

 Newsholmc. Pp. ix + 429. (London: Methuen and 

 Co., n.d.) Price los. (xi. net. 

 T^HE native races of the tropics have their various 



J- plagues and pestilences ; tuberculosis is generally 

 regarded as the white man's scourge. The incidence 

 of tuberculous diseases among the inhabitants of the 

 British Isles is indeed a heavy one, as shown by the 

 statistical data contained in the opening chapter of 

 the book under review, but it may not be so generally 

 known that tuberculosis has been introduced by the 

 colonising white man among manv native races, 

 among whom in some instances it is assuming alarm- 

 ing proportions. On these grounds, therefore, there 

 is ample justification for the publication of this work, 

 NO. 2050, VOL. 79] 



nhich deals first with the causes, and then with the 

 prevention, of this disease. 



The first paragraph of the book strikes the key- 

 note of the subsequent matter: — 



" Tuberculosis is a disease caused by the destructive 

 lesions set up in the lungs or in other parts of the 

 body by a special bacillus or microbe. The disease 

 is infectious, i.e. is communicable from man to man 

 and from animals to man ; and it never originates 

 in the body apart from the invasion of the special 

 bacillus." 



Tuberculosis, therefore, being placed among the 

 infective diseases, it is natural to compare the death- 

 rate due to it with that of the chief infective diseases 

 — measles, whooping-cough, diarrhoea, enteric, scarlet 

 and typhus fevers, small-pox and diphtheria. We 

 learn that in 1904 the number of deaths in England 

 and Wales from all these were 67,154; from tuber- 

 culous diseases there were 60,205, *"■, in other words, 

 tuberculous diseases in 1904 caused sixty deaths for 

 every sixty-seven caused by the aggregate of the 

 chief acute infectious diseases ! 



In chapter ii. the magnitude of the evil is discussed 

 from the economic point of view. Thus, taking the 

 statistics of the phthisis (consumption) admissions to 

 the Brighton workhouse infirmary from July 15, 

 1897, to May 23, 1905, Dr. Newsholme calculates that 

 the cost to the rate-payers amounted to more than loooi. 

 per annum, and on this basis the indoor relief ex- 

 pended on the treatment of consumptives in the work- 

 house infirmaries of England and Wales amounts to 

 331,000/. per annum. A brief but sufficient sketch of 

 the history, morbid anatomy, and symptoms of 

 phthisis and an . account of the tubercle bacillus 

 follows, and then in chapters vii.-ix. the important 

 question of the infectivity of tuberculosis is discussed. 

 Of this the author has no doubt, and the portals 

 and channels of infection are considered in succeeding 

 chapters. It is satisfactory to find that tuberculosis is 

 declining, and in part ii. the causes of the reduction 

 in mortality from phthisis from 281 per 100,000 living 

 in 1850-4 to 123 in 1901-4 are surveyed. The argu- 

 ment and conclusion are that iiistitulional segregation 

 is the predominant cause of the decline of phthisis 

 in this country. 



Finally, in part iii. the measures for the reduction 

 and annihilation of tuberculosis arc discussed. The 

 author favours the view that the diminution of infec- 

 tion outweighs in importance the diminution of the 

 conditions favouring infection, and therefore the early 

 recognition of the disease together with notification 

 are of importance, for then institutional segregation 

 and sanatorium treatment may be secured at that 

 early stage so essential if a cure is to be hoped for, 

 so necessary for the prevention of infection. The 

 various preventive methods are discussed in some 

 detail, and the administrator will gather many valu- 

 able hints from a perusal of this portion of the 

 book. 



Although, as stated in the preface, written almost 

 entirely from the standpoint of the public health 

 administrator, and intended primarily for medical 

 officers of health, the book is free from technicalities, 



