536 



SCIENCE 



[N. 8. Vol. XLIII. No.. 1111 



viewer as rather meager, many of tlie more 

 important phenomena connected with ultra- 

 violet light not being mentioned. The same 

 criticism might be made of the chapter on the 

 infra-red spectrum which includes a page on 

 cathode rays and four pages on X-rays. The 

 three chapters on photometry, illumination and 

 the eye are the least satisfactory in the whole 

 book. The treatment is academic, scanty and 

 contains little that is valuable and modern, but 

 it is a decided advance to include these sub- 

 jects at all in a general text on light. 



Part IV., on the mathematical theory of 

 light, gives an excellent presentation of the 

 electromagnetic theory in six chapters totaling 

 one hundred pages. The opening chapter on 

 the nature of light, giving the gist of a num- 

 ber of the author's papers on the subject, needs 

 no apology on the ground that it is original 

 material. The final chapter is on the relative 

 motion of matter and ether. 



Numerous problems are given at the end of 

 each chapter. These and the general presenta- 

 tion and arrangement of matter make the trea- 

 tise well adapted for class-room work for 

 third year students in the average university. 

 If supplemented by a little modern technical 

 optics it would serve very well as an introduc- 

 tion to applied optics. 



p. g. istutting 



Rochester, N. Y. 



John Shaw Billings. A Memoir. By Fielding 

 H. Garrison, M.D. New York and London, 

 George P. Putnam's Sons, 1915. Pp. 432. 

 I was first brought into contact with Dr. 

 Billings in the Satterlee Army Hospital, 

 Philadelphia. He was the executive oiScer 

 and not long after my being ordered there I 

 was appointed assistant executive officer. This 

 threw us much together. One evening in his 

 quarters he became unusually free and confi- 

 dential in his conversation and in an infre- 

 quently interrupted monologue he told me in 

 detail the story of his early life and trials. 

 These are sufficiently set forth in this admir- 

 able volume. That one could overcome such 

 obstacles and finally reach the international 



fame which crowned his later life is an in- 

 spiring lesson to every young man and espe- 

 cially every young doctor. 



The last time I saw him was not long before 

 his death. He took the time to show me all 

 over his latest triumph, the New York Public 

 Library. 



Before he was fifteen he bought a Latin 

 grammar and dictionary in order to translate 

 the classical quotations encountered in his 

 always omnivorous reading. "With a geometry, 

 some Greek books, etc., he eked out his knowl- 

 edge sufficiently to enter Miami University, 

 graduating in arts in 1857 and in 1859 in 

 medicine. His early struggles with poverty 

 (during one vrinter he lived on Y5 cents a 

 week) were much lightened by his becoming 

 demonstrator of anatomy in 1860. 



In 1861 he began his wonderful career first 

 as an army surgeon. His remarkable powers 

 of work and of organization were at once called 

 into play. This was the fitrst phase in his pro- 

 fessional life. From the field he was sent to 

 the surgeon general's office. In this new 

 sphere he soon became the first medical bibli- 

 ographer not only of our time, but of all time. 

 I remember seeing him more than once flanked 

 right and left by two appalling piles of jour- 

 nals checking title after title for cataloging. 

 The result was year after year the great Index 

 Catalogue of the Surgeon General's Library and 

 later the Index Medicus, the two greatest con- 

 tributions ever made to medical bibliography. 



These two services in the field and in the 

 library, with much labor in the museum, would 

 be enough for most men. But he added a 

 third career in sanitation and hospital con- 

 struction. In the course of his life he planned 

 seven great buildings, the Johns Hopkins 

 Hospital being the first and the New York 

 Public Library the last. While as Dr. Hurd 

 has pointed out the " housekeeping " part of 

 that hospital was not perfect, yet we must re- 

 member that even Jupiter sometimes nods. 

 In one of these somnolent spells Billings actu- 

 ally used candelabrse as a plural. 



As a statistician and scientist he won a 

 prominent place. His address in 1881 at the 

 International Medical Congress and in 1886 



