694 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 487. 



Amazonas of Orellana; Bartholemeu Velho, 

 in his map of 1464, represented a great 

 central lake (Eupaua) from which flowed 

 to the south the Paraguay, to the north 

 and entering the Amazonas the 'Paraa' 

 (thus representing quite well the Tocan- 

 tins), and to the east two rivers entering 

 the Sao Francisco (quite well figured but 

 united to the Parana) which bifurcated to 

 the coast of Maranh o by the river ' Abiun- 

 hao' (Parnahyba) and to that of Sergipe 

 by the river ' Real. ' This last feature per- 

 sisted in maps until 1700. 



The Gutierrez map, printed in Amster- 

 dam in 1562, had an enormous recupera- 

 tion and served as a prototype for a flood 

 of maps . characterized by a double Ama- 

 zonas, published by the great Dutch print- 

 ing firms of Oi'telius, Mercator, etc. The 

 equally bold conception of Bartholemeu 

 Velho (reproduced, as regards the hydrog- 

 raphy, by Vaz Dour ado) had a somewhat 

 more delayed entrance in current cartog- 

 raphy, in which it was introduced in 1585 

 by Jan van Doet, whose map is essentially 

 a reproduction of that of Bartholemeu 

 Velho, of which the original only recently 

 became known. These two types of maps, 

 reproduced and modified ad hifinitiim, 

 dominated cartography until 1625, when 

 Jean de Laet, in the first edition of his 

 great work on the New World, made a 

 radical reform, introducing, on the basis 

 of Portuguese marine charts and of Dutch 

 explorations, the configuration which, im- 

 proved but not essentially modified, has 

 persisted till to-day. This last group of 

 maps offers an interesting subject for 

 study, for which, however, I have not the 

 elements at hand. Oeville A. Derby. 



Sao Paulo, Brazil, 

 June, 1903. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 Gould's biographic clinics. 

 Medical teaching has always been essen- 

 tially demonstrative; and in modern days the 



facilities for bedside or ' clinical ' instruction 

 have been enormously enlarged. No instruct- 

 or, however, has ever before gathered so 

 distinguished an array of ' subjects ' as Dr. 

 George M. Gould brings before his world-class 

 to illustrate his lectures upon ' Eye-strain.'* 

 For it is in the irritation of nerve centers as 

 a result of the accommodational strain neces- 

 sitated by the attempt to use faulty visual 

 apparatus in work requiring delicate adjust- 

 ment and continuous effort, that this eminent 

 lexicographer and ophthalmologist finds the 

 ready explanation of the physical miseries of 

 the great students, artists and writers whose 

 pathologic life-history he studies. Certain 

 common factors are found in these histories, 

 not the least important of which are the early 

 development and long persistence of the symp- 

 toms, their recurrence whenever the sufferer 

 used the eyes in work or study, their resistance 

 to all sorts of treatment, their relief when en- 

 forced rest from work gave unwitting deliver- 

 ance from their cause and, finally, in those who 

 survived to that period of life, their sudden 

 disappearance, when accommodational effort 

 ceased to be possible. The ' mysteriousness ' 

 which the symptoms seemed to assume both 

 to patients and to physicians, is also a point 

 well worth noting. To quote Dr. Gould's own 

 words : " This lack of cause or reason for their 

 sufferings struck each one, and pages of ex- 

 cerpts might be gathered showing their won- 

 der. An unseen malignant enemy or fatality 

 seemed seated above them or at the very heart 

 of their being, implacable and unexplainable. 

 To their physicians they turned with beseech- 

 ing question, and imploring aid. Some spent 

 a great part of their lives in going from one 

 doctor to another, or in testing quackery, in 

 traveling for hoped relief anywhere, by 



* ' Biographic Clinics : The Origin of the 111 

 Health of DeQuincey, Carlyle, Darwin, Huxley and 

 Browning.' Idem, Volume II., George Eliot, 

 George Henry Lewes, Wagner, Parkman, Jane 

 Welch Carlyle, Spencer, Whittier, Margaret Fuller 

 Ossoli and Nietzsche. By George M. Gould, M.D., 

 Editor of American Medicine, Author of 'An 

 Illustrated Dictionary of Medicine, Biology, etc.,' 

 ' Borderland Studies,' ' The Meaning and Method 

 of Life,' etc. Philadelphia, P. Blakiston's .Son & 

 Co., 1903, 1904. 



