Decembeu 5, 1901] 



NA TURE 



99 



work of his later years — rabies and its prevention. His 

 researches on vinegar, on the diseases of wine, his 

 laborious investigations extending over years which suc- 

 ceeded in disclosing the origin of the diseases in silk- 

 worms which had threatened to ruin the silk industry of 

 France, his studies on beer, collected in a magnificent 

 volume covering nearly 400 octavo pages, are but a few 

 of the colossal labours which occupied his mind before 

 he became absorbed in the study of contagious diseases. 



At the ripe age of fifty-five we find him devoting him- 

 self with all the energy and enthusiasm of youth to the 

 study of pathological phenomena. Various theories as 

 to the origin of anthrax were in the air at the time when 

 Pasteur determined to enter the field. M. Radot gives a 

 most vivid account of these researches and of the hopes 

 and anxieties to which Pasteur was a prey at this time, 

 living as he did in a condition of intense nervous tension 

 and excitement during their progress. Difficulties, how- 

 ever, never deterred, they only served to stimulate, Pasteur. 

 The memoir in which Pasteur and his assistants com- 

 municated their successful investigations on anthrax and 

 septic.X'inia to the .\cademy of Sciences is famous, not 

 only on account of the manner in which they mastered the 

 etiology of these diseases, but also for the extreme fer- 

 tility and originality of the ideas and experiments which 

 it records. Having established the identity of the virus 

 he set to work to discover a means of combating its 

 action, and thus he was led to those epoch-making re- 

 searches in the domain of immunity which were to suc- 

 ceed in converting a virus into a vaccine — a malignant 

 foe into a beneficent friend — and which have made the 

 name of Pasteur a household word revered in the remotest 

 corners of the globe. 



M. Radot, besides giving us a faithful and fascinating 

 history of Pasteur's scientific life and aspirations, has 

 with the delicate touch of a master revealed the inner 

 life of this great genius, with rare subtlety indicating the 

 essential character of the man who, 



" absorbed as he was in his daily task, yet carried within 

 himself a constant aspiration towards the ideal, a deep 

 conviction of the reality of the infinite and a trustful 

 acquiescence in the mystery of the universe." 



No one who reads Pasteur's speeches can fail to be 

 struck by the lofty tone which pervades them ; he sought 

 always the highest and scorned to touch what was base ; 

 his deep religious sense communicated itself to all who 

 were brought in contact with him, from the most exalted 

 in the land to the poorest student who came to work 

 under his guidance. 



In one of those public utterances which in his declining 

 years became so rare and so eagerly sought for he 

 tells us : 



" Our only consolation, as we feel our own strength 

 failing us, is the consciousness that we may help those 

 who come after us to do more and to do better than 

 ourselves, fixing their eyes as they can on the great 

 horizons of which we only had a glimpse." 



This is the keynote to his life, embodying the same 

 passionate desire to help others which stimulated him 

 from his earliest years, but mellowed by the ripeness of 

 advancing age, and the consciousness of a life fast draw- 

 ing to a close, the burden of which was soon to be laid 

 aside. G. C. Frankland. 



NO. 1675, VOL. 65] 



A MANUAL OF MEDICINE. 

 A Manual of Medicine. Edited by W. H. Allchin, M.D., 

 F.R.C.P. Lond., F.R.S. Edin., Senior Physician and 

 Lecturer on Clinical Medicine, Westminster Hospital. 

 Vol. iii. Diseases of the Nen'ous System. Pp. .\ -|- 417. 

 (London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1901.) Price 

 -js. 6d. net. 



THE third volume of Dr. AUchin's " Manual of Medi- 

 cine " is well up to the standard of its predecessors, 

 in fact, if anything, may be regarded as rather exceed- 

 ing it. Here, in 417 short pages, the student of medi- 

 cine has at his command a complete and up-to-date 

 book upon that ever-increasing domain of medicine, 

 nervous disease. The difficulty of editing must in this 

 volume almost have reached its maximum. When we 

 come to consider the enormous mass of literature which 

 has accumulated since even the publication of the last 

 standard book upon this subject, we may perhaps appre- 

 ciate the great difficulty of compressing our compendious 

 knowledge upon nervous disease into what may, without 

 forcing language, be called a manual. In these cir- 

 cumstances we can hardly expect theories to be discussed 

 in extenso, or ample polemic justice to be done to con- 

 troversial matter. The book is filled with terse fact, and 

 if its readability suffers somewhat on this account, its 

 value to the student is proportionally increased. 



With the space at our command we must content our- 

 selves with indicating rather than describing the contents 

 of the book. Even to those out of touch with the 

 burning problems of nervous disease, and only generally 

 interested with the physiology of the nervous system as 

 a part of biology, it will be manifest that the recent pro- 

 gress in histological method, the product of increased 

 knowledge of bio-chemistry, has profoundly modified our 

 conceptions of the constitution of the nervous system and 

 also neuro-pathology. 



In an introductory chapter Prof. Sherrington deals 

 with the physiology of the nervous system in a most 

 lucid and wonderfully succinct manner. This chapter is 

 followed by one contributed by Dr. Aldren Turner upon 

 the general pathology of the nervous system. Dr. Turner 

 points out that the adoption of the conception that the 

 nervous system consists of a series of neurons neces- 

 sarily precludes us from continuing to divide affections 

 of the nervous system above the foramen magnum from 

 those below. The only true system of classification 

 must be one based upon the neuronic systems primarily 

 involved. It must, however, be admitted that a given 

 morbid process need not necessarily confine itself to one 

 neuronic system, but may simultaneously implicate two 

 or more. Several other articles are contributed by the 

 same author. The one on focal diagnosis is especially 

 to be recommended. 



With the beer-poisoning epidemic fresh in our memory 

 we naturally turn to the article on peripheral neuritis, 

 which is written by Dr. Purves Stewart. The different 

 varieties of neuritis are well described, the author wisely 

 abstaining from controversial matter. Dr. Ormerod 

 contributes articles upon the spinal cord and its mem- 

 branes and the muscular dystrophies. 



The volume concludes with a most instructive and 



