May 2, 1907] 



NA TURE 



thoughtful writer of the book before us; he no doubt 

 would be amoBg the first to admit that his " Prin- 

 cipia " are for the most part rather of the nature of 

 ripe reflections on medicine — well-balanced cogitations 

 by a wise, experienced, and instructed physician, re- 

 garding his art, as it were, from a height. Such 

 thoughts obtain their generality rather by selection 

 and proportion than by the slow accumulations of 

 "induction." For our own part, we should have 

 been disposed to prefer for this book some such a 

 title as " Contemplations on Medicine." 



Yet if we are indisposed to accept Dr. Sainsbury's 

 mature reflections as " principia " in the sense of 

 scientific theory, we are far from saying that it is 

 useless to step thus backwards, or upwards, occasion- 

 ally, so as to take more comprehensive glances of our 

 science and art, and to delineate its larger features, 

 so far as a slight sketch may go. By standing clear 

 for a moment of the multiplicity of detail we gain 

 a better sense of the proportions of the parts. The 

 danger of this method is, of course, lest we mistake 

 mere generalities for laws, dialectic for analysis of 

 origins, and axioms of provisional service for verified 

 and permanent conceptions. And it would be too 

 much to say that Dr. Sainsbury has wholly escaped 

 this danger ; in some chapters his broad and detached 

 way of looking at things is significant and illumin- 

 ating, in others the attenuation of detail tends to 

 vapidity, and thought is diluted until it becomes 

 somewhat artificial and prosy. On the other hand, 

 it may be just to say that no one could perhaps have 

 penetrated farther in his way than Dr. Sainsbury 

 does, and we have admitted that the change of atti- 

 tude is needed occasionally to guide us and to give 

 us wider bearings. 



It would not be appropriate, then, to enter upon 

 controversies with the author on matters of detail. 

 It would not be difificult or unjust to do so, in many 

 details, if the point of view were in itself more 

 particular; but the author would be justified in 

 answering that his reflections must be judged, not by 

 items, but by the truth of the general point of view, 

 and his answer would have weight. We forbear, 

 then, from picking out from the joints of his edifice 

 mortar which in not a few places seems to us to be 

 unsound. Many a queried paragraph we mav pass 

 over in silence, as we must refrain from quoting 

 many a happy one. 



To turn to the larger aspects of the subjects, those 

 general thoughts which the author had in view are 

 often very well put; such as his conception of "com- 

 pensation " as but part of the adaptation of stable 

 moving equilibriums to their environments, so that 

 cardiac "compensation," for instance, too often con- 

 ceived with more than a spice of teleology, is a re- 

 adaptation of the same general kind as immunity to 

 bacterial and other poisons, and so forth. The whole 

 of chapter vi. is interesting, perhaps the best in the 

 book ; the relative incidence of remedies in time is 

 dwelt upon, and the potentialities of combinations of 

 drugs — a practice in recent years much neglected — are 

 fully discussed, their mutual enhancements or cross- 

 purposes considered, and an explanation given of the 

 NO. 1957, VOL. 76] 



chemical room left in the body for additional drugs 

 as these may be in a solution saturated by one or 

 more previously dissolved. Pp. 126-9, which deal with 

 this part of the subject, are felicitous, and also the 

 few pages following. Many sentences, too, are 

 happily put, as, for instance, on p. 40 : — " It may 

 here be noted how it is that the organism as a whole 

 secures its excretory stability, namely, bv not carry- 

 ing to the extreme the process of differentiation 

 through which the higher types of tissue have 

 arisen," &c. In another paragraph Dr. Sainsbury 

 estimates in general terms the relative vigour of the 

 communal and individual life of several parts. The 

 chapter on diet, again, is good, especially the dis- 

 cussion on alcohol. 



VVe must be forgiven if, in conclusion, we express 

 the opinion that, in one respect at any rate, the 

 author has not been watchful, namely, to counteract # 

 that tendency to flatness or dilution of thought which 

 we have said is almost inseparable from specula- 

 tive contemplations, and to endeavour to prevent 

 prosiness and vagueness, by apt and penetrating 

 phrases and instances. The quotations, which are 

 made with some profusion, many of them bits of 

 Latin, should have been fresh and " inevitable," but 

 Dr. Sainsbury has not gone out of his way to seek 

 for telling quotations. Almost all of them are well- 

 worn "tags"; some are stale indeed. A common 

 sentiment gains nothing by reiteration in Latin ; 

 modus operandi is no better than " mode of oper- 

 ation," and non pane solo vivit homo sounds to us 

 better in our mother tongue. These points may re- 

 ceive attention in the new edition which the book 

 deserves. The volume is well printed, and light in 

 the hand. T. C. A. 



OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS. 

 Lcitjaden der praktischen Optik. By Dr. .Mexander 

 Gleichen. Pp. viii + 221. (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 

 1906.) Price 5.60 marks. 



OF the making of German optical text-books there 

 is no end, and there are perhaps few which do 

 not constitute valuable additions to optical literature. 

 The present volume, however, does not pretend to 

 furnish new material, and it is improbable that it will 

 be found of any special interest to opticians in this 

 country. It is, indeed, not easy to gather for what 

 class of reader the work has been designed. The pre- 

 face suggests that the mathematical knowledge 

 assumed in the ordinary treatises on optical instru- 

 ments is usually lacking to the practical optician, 

 and that it seemed a not altogether useless task to 

 explain the principles of the theory of optical instru- 

 ments, their construction and design, on the basis of 

 an acquaintance with mathematics not extending 

 beyond the first elements of algebra. Thus should 

 the practical optician be provided with matter he 

 could digest and the student with a stepping-stone to 

 the treatises aforesaid, not the least useful among 

 which are the author's own " Lehrbuch der geo- 

 metrischen Optik " and his text-books on special 

 departments of optics. 



