June 7, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



445 



in the north, where I shall be able to ^et many tales and reliable 

 information from both natives and white men as to the Katipo, 

 and will let you know when I come back. I drove over to a man 

 who is said to have lost his arm through a Katipo, but I found that 

 he does not know one when he sees it, did not see the bite inflicted, 

 was in a place where the Katipo does not live, and when the arm 

 was removed the bone was diseased (honeycombed). That is one 

 of those tales people hear, and which make it difficult to believe 

 any thing. I feel certain the Katipo is a very dangerously poison- 

 ous spider, but I never but once saw a case with my own eyes. It 

 was many years ago, and I was out with a war party of Maoris. 

 One night we found ourselves in an unpleasant position, as far as 

 they were concerned. On our rear there were a number of nice 

 hollow places to sleep in; but as these were Maori ovens, in which 

 men had been cooked for a cannibal feast, the natives not only 

 would not sleep in them, but they would not let me : so we lay 

 down on the bare shingle beach, with no tent, in a high wind, and 

 before us at a short distance was an island that is (they say) in- 

 habited by evil spirits ; so, with spirits both before and behind, we 

 lay awake, talking in subdued whispers. 



" I had my head on a rush bush ; but they would have me shift 

 it on to a rock, because they said the Katipo lived in the rushes by 

 the seaside. I was anxious for them to sleep, knowing that to- 

 morrow we would want all our strengh ; but it was no use, for by 

 and by a man screamed out that the Katipo had bitten him, and in 

 a moment lights were brought, and, sure enough, the Katipo was 

 there, within a foot of the wound, under his mat. The arm swelled, 

 but not so much as to give alarm. What alarmed me more were 

 his weakness and languor, and the lowness of his pulse and his 

 heart-action. The poison certainly was a powerful narcotic, if 

 symptoms go for any thing. I gave him all the brandy we had, 

 and the natives pretty well burned his wound, and rubbed and 

 rubbed at him till they got him into a perspiration ; but he did not 

 properly recover for several days, and, if one had only known, it 

 would have been a mercy to have let him die (which I believe he 

 would). So I thought when I saw him gasping his life away with 

 blood and froth flowing from his mouth. Ugh ! That is one of 

 the several scenes I do not care to think about. By the by, I could 

 not get the specimen. The Maoris burned it, as they said the 

 Katipo is an ' evil spirit, and, if we did not burn it, the man would 

 die.' I have many chiefs here, and I asked them only to-day, but 

 no one ever heard of but one Katipo, — the black spider, with a 

 vermilion spot on the abdomen." 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



A Text-Book of Pathology, Systematic and Practical. By D. 

 J. Hamilton, M.B. Vol. I. London and New York, Mac- 

 millan. 8°. $6.25. 



From the pen of the professor of pathological anatomy of the 

 University of Aberdeen we should expect a text-book of pathology 

 which would be both systematic and practical, and we are not 

 disappointed. The first volume only has been published ; but the 

 second is in process of preparation, and will be issued with the 

 least possible delay. The contents of the volume before us are 

 divided into three parts. Part I. treats of the technique, including 

 the sectio cadaveris, or autopsy, the preparation of tissues for de- 

 tailed examination, and the microscope. In this portion of the 

 work, practical bacteriology also is discussed. Part II. deals with 

 general pathological processes, including infiltrations and degenera- 

 tions, inflammation, suppuration, healing and organization, ulcera- 

 tion, and dropsy. In Part III. we find considered diseases of the 

 various organs and tissues, new formations and tumors, diseases of 

 the blood, the heart, and the blood-vessels. In an appendix are 

 thoroughly described the methods of making casts and models, 

 which are most important adjuncts to every pathological museum. 

 The author promises us that in the second volume he will discuss 

 systematic bacteriology in extenso ; and, as this subject has now 

 become so important, we shall look for this volume witli great in- 

 terest. The methods described in the volume before us are, as a 

 rule, the most advanced and the best. We think that the method 

 of making Esmarch's tubes might have received more attention 



than has been given to it, on account of its advantages over Koch's 

 plate method. Nothing is said of rolling these tubes on ice, which 

 is now done in most of the American laboratories, perhaps for the 

 reason that the method is not known in the British Isles. It will 

 be found by those who try it superior to cold water. Taken as a 

 whole, we have nothing but praise for Mr. Hamilton's book ; and, 

 if it receives the attention of the medical profession of this country 

 as it deserves, it will soon become the leading text-book of pathol- 

 ogy in our medical colleges. 



Elementary Text-Book of Zoology. By Dr. C, Claus. Tr. and 

 ed. by Adam Sedgwick, M.A., and F. G. Heathcote, M.A. 

 2 vols. 2d ed. London and New York, Macmillan. 8°. $8. 

 Mr. Sedgwick, lecturer of Trinity College, Cambridge, an<} 

 examiner in zoology in the University of London, undertook the 

 translation of this work of Claus (" Lehrbuch der Zoologie ") to 

 supply a want, which had long been felt in England by both teach- 

 ers and students, of a good elementary book on this subject. The 

 reputation of Professor Claus's works on zoology in Germany, and 

 indeed throughout the civilized world, naturally suggested this one 

 to Professor Sedgwick as the one best adapted to supply the de- 

 ficiency which existed, and in the two volumes before us we have- 

 the most complete elementary text-book on this subject in the Eng- 

 lish language. Others, to the extent to which they go in the 

 treatment of special subjects, may be equally good ; but none 

 that we have seen can claim the same degree of excellence and 

 completeness combined. The work is illustrated with 706 wood- 

 cuts ; and as to its general excellence, we need but call attentiork 

 to who its publishers are. 



Pestalozzi: his Aim and Work. By Baron Roger De Guimps. 



Tr. by Margaret C. Crombie. Syracuse, C. W. Bardeen. 12°. 



$1.50. 

 This is a convenient biography of Pestalozzi by one of his own 

 disciples ; and Miss Crombie has rendered a service to English and 

 American educators by bringing it out in their own language. The 

 arrangement of the work is not always the best, and some points 

 are not made so clear as might be wished ; but nevertheless it gives, 

 a very fair account of Pestalozzi's life, and of his educational theory 

 and practice. He was born in 1746, and quite early showed that 

 interest in the education and moral elevation of the masses which 

 was the ruling motive of his life. He first undertook to be a clergy- 

 man, but, not succeeding in that profession, attempted that of law,, 

 from which he was excluded by the Swiss authorities, to whom his 

 political views were obnoxious. He then engaged for some years 

 in farming, having in the mean time taken a wife ; but his want of 

 business skill led to ultimate failure, so that he was reduced almost 

 to beggary. After this he tried his hand at authorship, in which 

 he had some successes and some failures ; and it was not until he- 

 was over fifty years of age that he found his true vocation of teach- 

 ing, which thereafter continued to be his occupation most of the 

 time during the remaining thirty years of his life. Every one of his. 

 schools ultimately came to a disastrous end, owing in great part to 

 his own want of business skill and managing tact. Nevertheless,, 

 he was able to put in practice his new method of teaching, which, 

 in the opinion of his admirers, is the greatest improvement ever 

 made in education. 



What this method was, his biographer does his best to explain ^ 

 yet he confesses in the end that " the world has not yet got a 

 clear answer to the oft-repeated question, ' What is Pestalozzi's 

 method ? ' " It seems evident, however, that it consisted mainly in 

 what are now called object-lessons combined with drawing, while 

 learning from books was almost totally excluded. He had, we are 

 told, an utter contempt for book-learning, and he seems to have 

 thought that the whole educational practice of the world for two. 

 thousand years had been wrong, and that nothing but a revolution 

 would set things right. The accounts given in this book, however, 

 do not justify any such inference. Pestalozzi tried his method first 

 on his own son, with the result that the boy was not educated at 

 all, but grew up an ignoramus. At the age of eleven he could not 

 read, and when, at fourteen, he was sent to school, he made a com- 

 plete failure in his studies, as he afterwards did in business. It is 

 clear that Pestalozzi's method was only adapted to the earliest 



