73° 



NA TURE 



[December 2, 1922 



expected that the medical histories which were bound 

 to make their appearance would be voluminous and 

 detailed, and that this country would not be behind 

 others in this respect. The volume before us does 

 not lead one to anticipate a standard work of per- 

 manent value in medical literature. From the brief 

 preface, occupying a page and a half, it is not clear 

 what the object of the work is. It is stated that the con- 

 tributors had at their disposal the material contained 

 in official documents, while later on it is said that 

 " there has been little opportunity for further analysis 

 and study of accumulated records of medical cases," 

 and an apology is made that the contributors have 

 been handicapped by the fact that papers published 

 during the war were comparatively few. To any one 

 conversant with the volume of medical literature which 

 poured out in every country, this must seem an 

 extraordinary statement. The " Index Medicus War 

 Supplement," dealing with 1914-17, occupies alone 

 260 pages of titles, which at a conservative estimate 

 represents at least 10,000 papers which were pub- 

 lished on some aspect of military medicine during 

 these three years. 



Whatever was the intention of the editors, the book 

 before us consists, in fact, of a series of short essays 

 dealing with general statements rather than with 

 actual data acquired during the war with respect to 

 the several diseases of which they treat. Thus typhus 

 fever and cholera are disposed of in sixteen and thirteen 

 pages respectively, while the article on " General 

 Aspects of Disease during the War " occupies less than 

 ten complete pages. The other articles deal with 

 such conditions as the enteric group of fevers, dysentery, 

 cerebro-spinal meningitis, malaria, trench fever, jaun- 

 dice, scurvy, beri-beri. pellagra, nephritis, and cardio- 

 vascular diseases. 



There are twenty-one contributors, and of these but 

 four were regular officers in the army. It cannot serve 

 a useful purpose to make an analysis of each of the 

 individual articles. Many are sketchy, some are 

 trivial, but those of Dr. Wenyon on malaria, of Sir W. 

 Willcox on scurvy and beri-beri, of Sir J. Rose Bradford 

 on nephritis, of Dr. Hume on cardio-vascular diseases, 

 and of Col. Lelean on pellagra, are worthy of study. 

 We are informed in the article on cholera that " all 

 recent evidence shows that the cause of cholera is 

 infection with the cholera bacillus." The word 

 " recent " must here be taken as implying a period 

 of nearly forty years. 



The bibliographies in general are short, and some 

 bear the impress of the professional copyist from the 

 " Index Medicus " rather than represent the works 

 consulted by the authors. In some cases the refer- 

 ences given are to abstracts and epitomes and not to 

 NO. 2770, VOL. I IO] 



the original works, although the latter were easily 

 accessible. References such as " Nicolot, Bour, Monier- 

 Vinard and Buguet, Le Paludisine," without date or 

 locus of publication, are not helpful to the reader. 

 Tin coloured illustrations, six in number, are successful, 

 but the index bears evidence of having been compiled 

 by some one unfamiliar with this class of work. In 

 future volumes it is to be hoped that some of the 

 defects of this one will be rectified. Compared with 

 the greatness of the subject, the appearance of the 

 volume is not attractive. W. IS. 



Our Bookshelf. 



Engineering Inspection. By Prof. E. A. Allcut and 

 ('. j. King. Pp. xv + 187. (London: G. Routledge 

 and Sons, Ltd., 1922.) 155. net. 

 The authors of the work under notice commence with 

 a summary of the objects of inspection, and follow this 

 by descriptions of inspection methods ranging from 

 the inspection of raw materials to the carrying out of 

 running tests on the manufactured product. These 

 descriptions should make the book valuable to inspec- 

 tion staffs, who will find therein much of the information 

 required in ordinary inspection work. In many cases 

 references are given to original papers dealing with 

 special methods of inspection, while the general in- 

 formation given in the text is amplified by a collection 

 of useful tables in the appendix. In some respects 

 the last chapter is the most important in the book, 

 since it deals with the kind of temperament, as well 

 as the qualifications, required in inspectors and viewers. 

 Throughout the book the authors emphasise the point 

 that the aim of an inspector should be to " scrap " as 

 little work as possible, to detect faults in materials 

 and workmanship at the earliest possible stage of 

 manufacture, and to pass all sound work with the 

 minimum delay. The type of organisation sketched 

 out will be of interest to all engineers, and may indicate 

 lines on which existing inspection systems can be 

 improved ; the general tone of the book should serve 

 to remove much of the distrust with which inspection 

 is still viewed by many. The authors are to be com- 

 plimented on having presented so comprehensive a 

 survey of an important subject in such a readable and 

 well-balanced form. 



The Emotions. By Carl G. Lange and William James. 

 (Psychology Classics, vol. 1.) Pp.135. (Baltimore, 

 Md. : Williams and Wilkins Co., 1922.) 4 dollars. 

 William James and Carl Lange, investigating the 

 problem of the emotions, independently and within a 

 year, arrived at a very similar point of view with regard 

 to the relation between the emotion as experienced by 

 the subject and its bodily expression. The theory, 

 generally known as the James-Lange theory, inverts 

 the usual common-sense sequence which would say 

 that we cry because we are sorry, and asserts that, 

 on the contrary, we are sorry because we cry. Practi- 

 cally every student of psychology since the publication 

 of the original articles has had to consider this conten- 



