November 28, 1901 



NA TURE 



is his critique of Darwinism ; it has stood the test of 

 time and is now admitted as justified, "and Darwinism, 

 for scientific circles at least, is at its last gasp. Weis- 

 mann, the toughest champion of Darwinism, can now 

 write over all his works devoted to the rescue of the 

 selection-principle, ' In vanuin laboraviinus! " These 

 are brave words, but the game is " bluff." 



A second " permanent truth " expressed by von 

 KoUiker was that organic evolution can only have come 

 about through internal factors, for von Kdlliker is one of 

 the many who have groped after " an unknown factor," 

 a "phyletische Lebenskraft." It has often seemed like a 

 clue, this idea of an internal tendency to progress, but it 

 has not as yet led us anywhere ; and we relapse from 

 obscure talk about "bathmism" into an a:tiology like 

 Tops/s " specks I growed." There may be some with 

 the bad taste to prefer Weismann's " germinal selection." 



.\ third " permanent truth " in von Kolliker's position 

 is that " he regarded all theories of descent, including 

 his own, as having only the status of probabilities," and 

 this is to appraise them rightly. In other words, evolu- 

 tion-theories were to him, as to most clear-headed people, 

 simply conceptual formula more or less justified by their 

 success in fitting the facts. Here, at least, those who 

 regard von KoUiker's heresies as expressive of a useful 

 scientific method and those who denounce them as errors 

 of judgment, those who stand by the selection-idea and 

 those who think that it has been literally worked to 

 death, may find a provisional peace, until they begin 

 again to try if they cannot get "any forrarder." 



J. A. T. 



067? BOOK SHELF. 

 A Treatise on Medical Jurisprudence. By G. V. Poore, 



M.D., F.R.C.P., Professor of the Principles and 



Practice of Medicine, University College, London. 



Pp. xxiv-l-533. Eighteen illustrations. (London: 



John Murray, igoi.) 

 The book before us consists essentially of a series of 

 lectures delivered by Dr. Poore at University College 

 during the time when he occupied the chair of medical 

 jurisprudence in that institution ; now that he has passed 

 to another sphere of duties, it is well that his labours as 

 a teacher of this most important subject should endure 

 in the concrete form of a manual. The lectures have 

 been freely edited by himself, and doubtless touched up 

 by others, but in spite of this they remain still essentially 

 lectures, delivered in a pleasant colloquial style ; if from 

 the point of view of highly systematised contents, some- 

 thing by this method has been lost, something has also 

 been gained, in that the volume before us may certainly 

 be designated one of the most readable which it has ever 

 fallen to our lot to peruse. 



To turn from the manner of the book to its matter, it 

 is t|uite impossible in a short notice to do adequate 

 justice to the mass of fact which it contains. The book 

 is not very fully indexed, and to get an adequate idea of 

 its contents the table of contents itself must be read. 

 This consists of a series of detailed chapter headings 

 which are repeated throughout the book at each chapter. 



Inter alia we would draw special attention to Chapter ii., 

 which deals with the legal relations of the medical pro- 

 fession. The subject-matter of this chapter, as in many 

 others throughout the book, is elucidated by illustrative 

 cases culled from the records of the Law Courts. Amongst 

 these cases we may mention the Tichborne, Palmer, 

 Lamson and Maybrick cases, each of which is fully de- 



NO. 1674, VOL. 65] 



scribed under the subject which renders them of per- 

 manent interest to the medical jurist. With regard to 

 the toxicological part of the subject, the author adopts 

 the wise method of only dealing with the symptoms 

 produced by, and the detection of, those poisons which 

 have actually been used criminally. .-^n interesting 

 chapter on food-poisoning is, we venture to think, not 

 strictly within the scope of the work. The criminal of to- 

 day is perhaps turning his attention to ptomaines, and it 

 may be that the criminal of the near future will actually 

 employ them. It is only to be hoped that modern chemistry 

 will be equal to the task of their identification. A very 

 useful chapter for the medical practitioner is the one upon 

 insanity, and the one immediately following, upon the 

 legal relations of the insane. In these two chapters he 

 will find full information with regard to what is very often 

 a puzzling subject, viz. what to do and how to do it when 

 one is suddenly called to a case which obviously requires 

 restraint. Is it to be wondered at that the busy medical 

 man has sometimes to be censured for not complying 

 with the law when, as Dr. Poore tersely puts it, the law 

 in question contains more than three hundred sections 

 and clauses, and weighs half a pound ? 



The volume concludes with eleven appendices upon 

 various subjects of importance to medical jurists. 

 Amongst these may be mentioned a most interesting 

 appendix (illustrated) by Dr. J. G. Garson upon "The 

 metric and finger-print identification of criminals as 

 carried out at New Scotland Yard." 



We may close our remarks by saying that Dr. Poore's 

 book deserves, and will surely have, a very wide circu- 

 lation, supplementing rather than replacing the more 

 systematised and voluminous works upon this subject. 



F. W. T. 



Ueber Musecn dcs Ostens der Vereinigten Staaten von 

 Amerika; Reisesiudien. By A. B.' 'Meyer. Part ii. 

 Illustrated. (Berlin, 1901.) 

 In this fasciculus the learned Director of the Royal 

 Zoological and Ethnographical Museum of Dresden 

 concludes his interesting account of the museums and 

 libraries of the United States visited during his recent 

 tour. Here we may avail ourselves of the opportunity of 

 correcting a misrepresentation of the author's opinions 

 which unfortunately occurs in our notice of the first 

 portion of his work. Instead of stating that Americans 

 are ahead of us in the matter of museum fittings. Dr. Meyer 

 awards the preeminence in this respect to European 

 institutions, although he is fain to confess that as regards 

 libraries and library installations we are not abreast of 

 America. 



In the present part Dr. Meyer discusses the chief 

 public institutions of Chicago connected with art, litera- 

 ture and science, namely, the Field Columbian Museum, 

 the Academy of Sciences, the Historical Society, the Art 

 Institute, the John Crerar, the Newberry, and the 

 Chicago Public Libraries and the University. The Field 

 Columbian Museum, which was opened in .\ugust 1893, 

 during the Chicago International Exhibition, under the 

 title of the Columbian Museum of Chicago, owes its 

 existence to private liberality, and in May 1894 was re- 

 named in honour of its fourider, Mr. M. Field, of the firm 

 of Marshall Field and Co. On Saturdays and Sundays 

 the Museum is open free to the public, but on other days 

 a small admission fee is charged, although the scholars 

 attending elementary and secondary schools are always 

 admitted without charge. Dr. Meyer furnishes his 

 readers with a plan of the ground floor and another of 

 the galleries, and discusses the general arrangement of 

 the rich collections and the mode of cataloguing. At 

 the conclusion of his article he expresses himself dis- 

 satisfied with the building, which he considers inadequate 

 to the contents, urging that if this were remodelled the 

 Museum ought to take rank among the first in the world. 



