ApitiL 29, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



697 



corrected is astigmatism uncorrected; and it 

 continues to excite reilexes — cerebral, muscu- 

 lar, cardiac, respiratory, digestional or what- 

 not. 



We should not like to be misunderstood as 

 teaching that eye-strain is fons et origo mali 

 to all the ills that flesh inherits; or even in 

 every case of nerve exhaustion, headache or 

 dyspepsia in students and writers. Neuras- 

 thenia, gout, indigestion, can develop in those 

 whose eyes are emmetropic, or, if ametropia, 

 have been skilfully corrected. Too much 

 confinement, too little exercise, injudicious 

 diet and other errors of temperament, work 

 and habit may cause many and varied symp- 

 toms, in the entire absence of eye-strain. 

 Nevertheless, it is to be admitted that even 

 in cases of other fundamental origin an 

 uncorrected or imperfectly corrected refractive 

 error will aggravate or even precipitate the 

 symptoms. 



We are not willing to go so far as Dr. Gould 

 in ascribing, for example, the final break-down 

 of Nietzsche to eye-strain alone. Of two 

 ' extreme ' and untenable hypotheses concern- 

 ing that brilliant unfortunate we prefer 

 Gould's to Moebius's, but we accept neither. 

 We have no third to offer, for the facts before 

 us are not sufficient to warrant dogmatism. 

 Certain it is, however, that much of Nietz- 

 sche's misery was due to eye-strain. True, 

 his eyes were examined and treated, but in 

 all probability there remained undiscovered 

 or uncorrected some worrisome refractive error 

 — for the Germans have yet much to learn of 

 the art that owes so much to the science of 

 great Germans. An odd or complicated 

 astigmatism, possibly of low amount, may 

 have eluded detection or there may have been 

 failure to adjust properly glasses correctly 

 prescribed, or the personal equation of the 

 patient may not have been met skilfully — 

 there are numerous possibilities ; and one guess 

 is as good or bad as another. 



To sum up : Dr. Gould has conceived with 

 the brain of a master thinker and inscribed 

 with the pen of a ready writer two volumes 

 of ' extreme ' readability, interest and impor- 

 tance ; on the whole wise in tone, always force- 

 ful, usually graceful, often elevated in diction ; 



unfortunately marred now and again by use- 

 less acridity or unnecessary denunciation. He 

 has shown that much, if not all, of the con- 

 stant or recurring distress of a number of the 

 leading spirits of the nineteenth century — dis- 

 tress otherwise mysterious and unaccountable 

 — was in all probability due to refractive de- 

 fects of the eyes and the consequent accom- 

 modational strain made necessary during work. 

 It might, therefore, have been relieved in large 

 part, if not entirely, by suitable glasses; and 

 this is the great, but therefore simple, lesson 

 for physician and for patient. In empha- 

 sizing this lesson the author has emphasized 

 old and unappreciated truth; he has also 

 added to the sum of truth. It is a work well 

 worth the doing; a work certainly not inferior 

 to the invention of a new staining fluid, the 

 synthesis of a new hypnotic drug or the de- 

 scription of a new symptom-complex; a work, 

 of which the true value will become more 

 apparent as the years increase. 



Solomon Solis Cohen. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 

 The April num.ber of the Botanical Ga- 

 zette contains the following articles: Mary 

 Ellen Bennett, under the title ' Are Hoots 

 Aerotropic ' ? has shown that the claim of 

 Molisch can not be sustained by her numerous 

 experiments. She also offers a solution for 

 the curvatures of roots recorded by him and 

 termed aerotropic. Aven Nelson in his fifth 

 ' Contributions from the Eocky Mountain Her- 

 barium ' describes a large number of new 

 species, chiefly from southern Utah and 

 southern Nevada. Elorence Lyon discusses 

 ' The Evolution of the Sex Organs of Plants,' 

 upon the basis of numerous very interesting 

 cases of exceptional development of antheridia 

 and archegonia that she has found, chiefly 

 among Pteridophytes. Charles Eobertson 

 makes a suggestive contribution to the phylog- 

 eny of Angiosperms from the standpoint of 

 his study of the problems of pollination. His 

 contention is that the primitive Angiosperms 

 were entomophilous, and that the anemophil- 

 ous ones are metamorphosed entomophilous 

 flowers, whose seemingly simple structures are 

 degraded, not primitive. E. V. Coville dis- 



