26 



NA TURE 



{^Nov. II, 1886 



describes as working in a few moments any logical 

 problems involving no more than four distinct terms or 

 things. It was like a small piano, three feet high, with 

 twentj'-one keys. A second book upon logic was pub- 

 lished in 1869, just after this had been made to work 

 correctly, entitled " The Substitution of Similars," con- 

 taining a sketch of the fundamental doctrine of his great 

 work, " The Principles of Science," which was not pub- 

 lished in full till 1S74, but reached a second edition in 

 one volume in 1877. 



In 1870 his "Elementary Lessons in Logic" ap- 

 peared in Macmillan's series of science class-books, 

 followed in 1876 by the " Primer of Logic," one of the 

 same publishers' more elementary series ; and in 1880 

 " Studies in Deductive Logic" for students desiring a more 

 thorough course of logical training. 



In 186S he had prepared three articles attacking J. S. 

 Mill's system of logic. They were declined at first, 

 but three years afterwards, soon after the death of Mr. 

 Mill, they were accepted by the Contemporary Review. 

 It is curious to see two such mighty champions of such a 

 learned science referring their differences to an unedu- 

 cated public and to their instinctive logic ! 



Though sorry on many accounts to leave Manchester, 

 his heart had never left London and its University, to 

 which he returned in 1876 as Professor of Pohtical 

 Economy. In that year he boldly read a paper laying it 

 down that the United Kingdom Alliance was the worst 

 existing obstacle to temperance reform in the kingdom — 

 driving the enemy to a man into fierce opposition. 



His first illness through over-work had occurred 

 in 1869, and from that time his letters in large pro- 

 portion are from various places — Norway was his 

 favourite resort — to which he had been driven to regain 

 strength. Trip after trip was taken, but with no per- 

 manent effect. As soon as he returned he again over- 

 whelmed himself with work, involving too great tension 

 of the brain. The labour especially of taking his class 

 when out of sorts was a "painful" labour to him. To 

 relieve himself from this he resigned his Professorship in 

 iSSo, and in 18S2, after two years more of work at home, 

 but still at high pressure, a plunge into the sea was too 

 sudden a chill for his enfeebled frame, and insensibility 

 and death were the sad result, at the prime age of forty- 

 six. 



One cannot help sorrowfully noting how his childish 

 b.ishfulness was the cause of his early death. It led to 

 unsociability and abstinence from recreation. Instead of 

 rejoicing in his strength, he shunned his companions, and 

 persuaded himself, moreover, that it was his duty to do 

 so, though he bitterly regrets it afterwards, one result 

 being an inabiUty to speak in public and communicate 

 his ideas as he would wish. The ardent cultivation of 

 his many talents, again, increased a feeling of superiority, 

 yet often left him low-spirited. In some it might have 

 brought carelessness and improvidence, but in Jevons it 

 was attended by a feeling of responsibility almost 

 religious. At twenty-three he threw up his easy and 

 lucrative post at the Sydney Mint in obedience to this 

 feeling, and, later on, he resigned one laborious duty only 

 to buckle to another, and under such labour his Jife 

 was quenched. 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY 

 An Introduction to General Pathology. By J. B. Sutton, 

 F.R.C.S. (London : J. and A. Churchill, 1886.) 



UNTIL recently, pathologists have confined their 

 attention to studying the processes of disease in 

 human beings, and but little effort has been made to take 

 advantage of the vast field of material presented by the 

 animals which die in the Gardens of the Zoological 

 Society. Since 1878 the author has systematically ex- 

 amined the bodies of 12,000 animals and of over 800 

 still-born and immature foetuses ; and from this vast 

 stock of material he has, for the purposes of the present 

 work, selected, from all parts of the animal kingdom, 

 striking examples which illustrate the main pathological 

 and physiological processes of life. The same principles 

 govern both, and processes which in one group of ani- 

 mals are the cause of disease, in another, owing to ana- 

 tomical differences, habits of life, and surroundings, have 

 no such influence. Moreover, pathological defects are 

 frequently inherited, and become looked upon as racial 

 peculiarities. Thus the horns of the Ungulata, the 

 curved canines of the Babiroussa, the atrophied right 

 ovary and right carotid artery in many birds, the large 

 third with the small second and fourth metarcarpals of 

 the horse, are now persistent, but were probably originally 

 accidental and pathological. 



The degree of development of the muscular tissue 

 of the gizzard of a bird is dependent upon the 

 nature of its food. The herring -gull of the Shetland 

 Islands changes its food twice every year — in the 

 summer living on grain, when its gizzard is of the 

 granivorous type, and in the winter on fish, when the 

 gizzard reverts to the carnivorous condition. The same 

 variations have been artificially produced by varying the 

 food of sea-gulls, pigeons, ravens, and owls. While ex- 

 cessive function is the great cause of hypertrophy of 

 organs, deficient usage is the determining factor in the 

 abnormal overgrowths of hair, nails, beaks, and teeth. 

 Rodents in captivity frequently require their teeth to be 

 artificially shortened in order to avert the fatal eflects of 

 excessive overgrowth. 



Monkeys, when in confinement, frequently die with 

 symptoms of more or less complete paraplegia, which has 

 recently been shown to be due to an overgrowth 

 (frequently rickety) of the vertebra- near the intervertebral 

 lamellx. This gradual compression of the cord also 

 occurs in tigers, lambs, bears, and others. These facts 

 observed in animals throw light upon the agonising pains 

 of mollities ostium, which are doubtless in like manner 

 due to compression of the cord and nerves, which is per- 

 mitted by the softening of the bones which the disease 

 causes. 



Metschnikoff 's definition that inflammation is a struggle 

 between irritant bodies and white blood-corpuscles is 

 adopted. Illustrations are given showing the white 

 corpuscles surrounding and digesting micro-organisms 

 and other foreign bodies, or dying in the attempt to 

 do so. When the tails and gills of larval batrachians are 

 being absorbed, numerous amoeboid cells can be seen 

 containing fragments of nerve-fibres and muscle. 



Our present knowledge of the nervous system quite fails 

 to ofter any explanation of the experiment which the author 

 performed by transposing the median and ulnar nerves in 



