Apkil 9, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



537 



A glance at the first few chapters will give 

 an idea of the scope of the work. 



The first chapter is entitled, " The Identity 

 of all Forms of Ancient and Primitive Medi- 

 cine." It is a discussion from an ethnological 

 standpoint of what has been determined con- 

 cerning the condition of medicine among 

 primitive races of ancient and modern times, 

 in which are found traces of modern tendencies 

 in medicine. Chapter II. is given up to 

 Egyptian medicine. The chapter opens with 

 a brief discussion of the fossil remains of man 

 leading up to a statement of the antiquity of 

 Egyptian civilization. Our author says : " At 

 the same time the gap between paleolithic and 

 neolithic man is much greater than that be- 

 tween the people of the late Stone Age and the 

 civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia." 

 The following pages are devoted to a discus- 

 sion of medicine among the Egyptian peoples 

 from the time of the earliest known physician 

 I-em-hetep (4500 b.o.) to the time of the pre- 

 dominance of Greek thought. The most im- 

 portant Egyptian medical documents are the 

 papyri of Brugsch, Ebers and Hearst, the chief 

 of these being probably the Ebers papyrus, 

 which was discovered by Georg Ebers at Thebes 

 in 18Y2 and dates back to 1550 B.C. It is in- 

 teresting to note the absence of all anatornical 

 learning in Egypt until the time of the intro- 

 duction of Greek thought which resulted in 

 the famous Alexandrian school. 



Chaper III. is devoted to Sumerian and 

 Oriental Medicine. " To sum up what we owe 

 to Oriental Medicine, the Babylonians spe- 

 cialized in the matter of medical fees, the 

 Jews originated medical jurisprudence and 

 public hygiene and ordained a weekly day of 

 rest, and the Hindus demonstrated that skill in 

 operative surgery which has been a permanent 

 possession of the Aryan race ever since." 



Chapter IV. treats of Greek medicine and 

 is divided into three sections : (1) Before Hip- 

 pocrates, (2) The Classic Period (460-146 

 B.C.), (3) the Grseco-Roman period (146 b.c- 

 476 A.D.). Chapter V. gives a discussion of 

 the Byzantine period (476-732 A.D.). "Al- 

 though the Byzantine power lasted over a 

 thousand years (395-1453 a.d.) medical history 



is concerned chiefly with the names of four 

 industrious compilers (Oribasius, Aetius, 

 Alexander of Tralles, and Paul of Aegina) 

 who were prominent physicians in the first 

 three centuries of its existence." Chapter VI. 

 is devoted to the Mohammedan and Jewish 

 periods (732-1096 a.d.). The titles of the next 

 two chapters, "The Medieval Period" (1096- 

 1438), " The Period of the Renaissance, the 

 Revival of Learning and the Eeformation " 

 (1438-1600), will give an idea of the trend of 

 the work. 



In a compilation of such magnitude it is 

 impossible that all errors should be avoided, 

 and if attention is called here to a few errors 

 in proof-reading it is with no thought of de- 

 traction, but with the hope of adding to the 

 usefulness of the work. On page 24, 13th line 

 from the top metal work is evidently intended, 

 instead of mental work as it is printed; on page 

 184 the last year of Robert Hooke's life was 

 nOS, instead of 1763 as printed. In the index 

 to personal names the page reference to Carl 

 Ferdinand von Arlt should be BJfd, instead of 

 547, McClung should be 474 instead of 592. 

 In the index to subjects (p. 761) Sex, deter- 

 mination of, should read IpH instead of 592. 

 These defects are of minor importance, but are 

 rather annoying when one has to search for 

 the correct page. In four weeks' almost con- 

 tinuous use of this volume the above errors are 

 the only ones which have come to my notice. 



EoT L. MOODIE 



Univeksity op Illinois, 

 College op Medicine, 

 Chicago. 



THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF FIORDS 

 There are two groups of geologists whose 

 ideas regarding the origin of fiords are mu- 

 tually opposed. The first group may be desig- 

 nated as the " glaeialists," because in their 

 opinion all the phenomena peculiar to fiords 

 may be explained as the result of extensive 

 glacial over-deepening of pre-glacial river val- 

 leys near the sea. The second group, or " non- 

 glacialists," reject the theory of ice erosion, 

 and attempt to account for the phenomena of 

 fiords in other ways. 



