May 17, 1912] 
fashion of former times, and it is becoming 
yearly more expensive and difficult for one 
in private life to keep abreast of the times 
even by specializing in a restricted field. 
And opportunities for one to do good scien- 
tific work with any chance of earning expense 
money are exceeding rare—unless a salaried 
position is secured in advance. 
The increased number of scientific and edu- 
cational institutions apparently fail to give 
equal facilities with the past to the independ- 
ent youthful student. And the increase in 
volume of literature renders it impossible for 
any one not connected with some wealthy in- 
stitution, or with large private means, to keep 
posted on proposed changes in nomenclature 
—to say nothing of the new discoveries being 
made. 
There is no decrease in the interest of the 
general public in scientific work, but the ex- 
isting state of affairs is probably due chiefly 
to expansion and greatly increased activity, 
resulting in a mass of umassimilated data 
and museums bursting beyond the bounds set 
by their founders. 
CO. R. Orcutt 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 
A Oyclopedia of American Medical Biography, 
Comprising the Lives of Eminent Deceased 
Physicians and Surgeons from 1610 to 
1910. By Howarp A. Ketry, M.D. LIlus- 
trated with Portraits. Two Volumes. 
Philadelphia and London, W. B. Saunders 
Company. 1912. 
This work, handsome in typography and 
execution, and containing over twelve hun- 
dred biographies of prominent deceased Amer- 
ican physicians, written, for the most part, in 
clean-cut style by various competent hands, 
marks a distinct advance upon any of its 
predecessors in the same kind. Of the earlier 
dictionaries of American medical biography, 
those of Thacher (1828) and of the eminent 
surgeon S. D. Gross (1861) have a definite 
historic value, but the separate lives are 
usually too long, Thacher’s, in particular, 
being surcharged with that florid, stilted 
spirit which, as Dr. Holmes wittily said, 
SCIENCE 
177 
“has chewed the juice out of all the superla- 
tives in the language in Fourth of July ora- 
tions”; while the generous-minded Gross, in- 
capable of saying anything unkind about his 
colleagues, was perhaps lacking in a right 
critical sense for that very reason. On the 
other hand, the later works—those of Atkin- 
son (1878), Stone (1894) and Watson (1896) 
—abound in shorter biographies, but are, in 
the main, only directories of contemporary 
names. Dr. Kelly’s Cyclopedia strikes a happy 
balance between the extremes of florid en- 
comium and mediocre choice, consisting, in 
the main, of compact sketches of the lives of 
medical men who have “done things,” and is 
thus a genuine contribution to medical his- 
tory. Some of these worthies have described 
new diseases, have introduced new drugs, new 
operations or therapeutic procedures, or have 
otherwise contributed to the elevation of 
American medicine as chemists, botanists, 
zoologists, bibliophiles, military and naval 
surgeons or leaders in hygienic and social 
movements. The editor’s plan in getting up 
this work was two-fold: one group of his co- 
workers took up the physicians who were of 
local importance as practitioners; the other 
group took care of those who are of scientific 
importance in relation to the specialties which 
they helped to advance. Some of the former 
class might seem at first sight of little conse- 
quence, yet it will appear that as teachers, or- 
ganizers of schools and hospitals, pioneers in 
hygiene, whether in Canada, Mississippi or 
the far west, they have their place in the de- 
velopment of earlier American medicine, even 
though unknown in Berlin, St. Petersburg 
or Vienna. Professor Horatio C. Wood, the 
well-known therapeutist, relates that he was 
onee asked by an eminent European authority 
for a list of the professors of his specialty in 
America. Upon receiving some forty or fifty 
names, the astounded savant replied: “In 
God’s name who are these people? I never 
heard of more than one or two of them.” 
Identical sensations are experienced in look- 
ing over the pages of Hirsch’s “ Biograph- 
isches Lexikon der Aerzte,” that monument of 
1Therap. Gaz., Detroit, 1911, XXXV., 92. 
