April 15, 1909] 



NATURE 



18- 



clearest insight into the processes that have been 

 employed and the reason for the direction which pro- 

 n'res^ has taken. It is a long cry from the ancient 

 Greek to the modern physicist, from Aristotle to Pas- 

 teur, and by a few scanty references to the work of 

 eminent men in past centuries we do not get any 

 continuous picture of the growth of any one science, 

 be it physics or chemistry, zoology or botany, geology 

 or astronomy, for all these and some others figure 

 within the modest compass the author allows himself. 



.\ comparison with Ostwald's " Klassiker der 

 Exacten Wissenschaften " would be inevitable, even 

 if the author had not frequently directed attention to 

 that work, and occasionally availed himself of its con- 

 tents. Such comparison is, however, to the disadvan- 

 tage of the present work. In that case, the classics 

 of science hitherto accessible only to the few were 

 made available to the many. Specialists, each eminent 

 in his own branch of science, were responsible for the 

 presentation of the work, each in his own depart- 

 ment, to which ample space was allotted. But here 

 the only arrangement that can be recognised is 

 roughly chronological, and the student is led from 

 subject to subject without leisure to concentrate his 

 attention upon any. Perhaps there is no great reason 

 to quarrel with the choice of researches the author 

 has made in order to illustrate particular phases in 

 the history of discovery. No selection could be en- 

 tirely satisfactory when there is overlapping of research 

 or contemporaneous advance. Why, for example, 

 should Torricelli be omitted and Guericke appear, or 

 Celsius be chosen in preference to Reaumur? Sir 

 William Herschel finds a place, Bradley does not ; 

 Chladni discusses the origin of meteors, Schiaparelli is 

 passed over in silence. One might ask whether Hum- 

 boldt and Goethe fairly come within this scheme, or 

 whether Darwin is adequately represented by an 

 extract from the " Journal of the Beagle," or Helm- 

 holtz by a quotation from a popular lecture? But it 

 would be unfair not to remember and admit that this 

 work is only a portion of a larger treatise. It is the 

 first volume of a " Grundrisz einer Geschichte der 

 Naturwissenschaften," and possibly if the whole 

 treatise were before us the scheme could be better 

 appreciated. 



SANITARY SCIENCE. 

 The Essentials of Sanitary Science. Bv Gilbert E. 

 Brooke. Pp. xii + 415. (London: Henry Kimpton, 

 iqoq.) Price 6s. net. 



THE author of this work states in his preface that 

 he hopes it will meet its aim of covering all 

 the necessary ground for the student preparing for 

 the diploma of public health, and that he has en- 

 deavoured to make it as useful in the laboratory as in 

 the study; furthermore, he hopes it may also be 

 useful to sanitary officers and medical officers of the 

 public services. A glance suffices to make it plain 

 that he has not achieved his aim. He has failed 

 because he attempted the impossible when he set 

 himself the task of covering the whole range of the 

 science and practice of hygiene and public health 

 NO. 2059, VOL. 80] 



within the narrow compass of a small, handy volume. 

 The work is, in fact, little more than a digest or 

 summary, which is not suited to the student's needs, 

 and the lack of detail is also an essential respect in 

 which it will fail to meet the needs of the public- 

 health official. It is not sufficient, for instance, to tell 

 the student for the diploma of public health that in 

 reference to the working of a barometer, corrections 

 have to be made for capillarity, temperature, and alti- 

 tude (p. 29), when his examiners expect him to know 

 how these corrections are made ; nor is it sufficient 

 to offer a sanitary official, presumably for reference 

 pur]X)ses, a digest of sanitary law in which the whole 

 of the important and complicated subject of legisla- 

 tion dealing with the food supply is dismissed in a 

 page and a half of printed matter. 



Although the general scrappiness of the informa- 

 tion so materially limits the value of the book to the 

 student and practitioner alike, it possesses some good 

 points which add to one's regret at having to criticise 

 unfavourably the work as a whole. Little fault can 

 be found with the selection made of the material dealt 

 with. Indeed, for the most part it is wise and in 

 good proportion ; but a glaring exception to this 

 rule is to be noted in the case of tuberculosis, which 

 is not mentioned in the index, and is only referred 

 to in connection with dust and milk in the text of the 

 book. Again, there are few^ instances of inaccuracies 

 — the faults of commission, in fact, sink into insigni- 

 ficance before the all-prevailing faults of omission; 

 but an insufficient statement of the subject is often 

 responsible for leading the student by implication to 

 erroneous conceptions. In this connection the author's 

 attention is directed to the fact that for the purpose of 

 aerobic bacteriolysis it is not usual to put a layer of 

 sand on the top of the filter and another layer at the 

 bottom immediately over the effluent pipes ; nor is 

 the average composition of crude sewage in this 

 countrv represented by albuminoid ammonia in the 

 amount of o'28 of a part per 100,000. 



It is conceded that a vast amount of information 

 is comprised within the small compass of the work, 

 but it is information of a scrappy and incomplete 

 order, and information in respect of which essentials, 

 both from the standpoint of the student and prac- 

 titioner, are omitted. As evidence of the justice of 

 this statement it is not necessary to do more than 

 direct the reader's attention to the fact that the bac- 

 teriological examination of water is dismissed in three 

 and a half pages, or not much more than 100 lines 

 of print; that to the chemical examination of disin- 

 fectants three-quarters of a page of printed matter is 

 devoted, and carbolic acid is the only disinfectant dealt 

 with ; and that the important subject of school 

 hygiene, the importance of which to the public-health 

 student cannot well be exaggerated now that the 

 Education (Administrative Provisions) Act is a force 

 in the land, is dismissed in four pages. 



Dr. G. E. Brooke has had experience both as a 

 health officer and a teacher, and is the author of 

 one or two useful handbooks, and he must realise that 

 this work stands in need of a considerable extension 

 if it is to meet the objects for which it was designed. 



