November lo, 1893.] 



SCIENCE. 



263 



will make this little book of very much more value to 

 the novice than any other attempt to accomplish a sim- 

 ilar purpose. Something over one hundred pages are 

 devoted to a description of one hundred of our com- 

 monest butterflies, including not only a description of 

 the butterfly, caterpillar and chrysalis, but a general 

 account of the eggs, the habits, feeding plants and dis- 

 tribution of the species, giving the student thus a brief 

 but comprehensive account of our knowledge of 

 each different species. An appendix, which is fortu- 

 nately illustrated by figures, gives directions to the 

 student for collecting, rearing, preserving and studying 

 specimens. 



The two books together form a very valuable intro- 

 duction into the study of New England insect life. 

 Cholera: Its Causes, Symptoms, Pathology and Treatment. 



By Robert S. Bartholow, M. D., LL.D. Philadel- 

 phia, Lea Bros. & Co. 



This little book, of 125 pages, is quite opportune in 

 its publication at the present time, when the civilized 

 world is once more agitated over the subject of cholera, 

 and when we are believing that we have succeeded in 

 so mastering the disease as to make the epidemics of 

 former times impossible. Dr. Bartholow writes, from 

 an experience of his own through two epidemics, and 

 his words are therefore more authoritative than they 

 might be from one with no personal experience. The 

 book deals with the history of the disease, with the 

 various epidemics that have invaded Europe and Amer- 

 ica during the present century, and gives, also, a brief 

 account of cholera in this country. It considers care- 

 fully the causes of the disease, and accepts the comma 

 bacillus as the existing cause, though recognizing a 

 large factor in personal predisp)Osition toward the 

 disease. The relation of the disease to drinking water 

 is very satisfactorily shown by study of several epi- 

 demics in the world, and the details of their distribution 

 through drinking water. The latter part of the book 

 is more strictly for the use of physicians, being an 

 account of the symptoms and treatment of the disease. 

 A chapter on methods of prevention will, perhaps, from 

 fls practical standpoint, be the most valuable to the 

 general reader, inasmuch as it is through preventive 

 remedies, rather than through the treatment of the 

 disease, that we are hoping at the present time to be 

 able ro stop the spread of this once dreaded scourge. 

 The book is timely, well written and interesting. 

 Analytical Keys to the Genera and Species of the Water 



Alyce and the Desmidicce of the United States. By Alfeed 



C. Stokes. 1893. 177 pp. 1 pi. 8 vo. 



This book has been prepared to serve as a key to the 

 genera and species of Algae and Desmids described in 

 Eev. Francis Wolle's monographs of the two groups. In 

 the introduction Dr. Stokes puts in a strong plea for arti- 

 ticial keys. He is aware that specialists usually look 

 down upon such aids to a knowledge of their subjects, 

 but he rightly thinks that the keys aid the beginner over 

 the hard places in the new study. While the key can 

 only enable one to find the name of an object, this name 

 is what every one must find before he can begin any in- 

 telligible discussion concerning it. "The object," he says, 

 "cannot be referred to by speech or in writing until its 

 name is known. What other workers in other parts of 

 the world may have said about it, or done with it, cannot 

 be known until its name is learned, as without the name 

 all indexes are closed in all the books in all the libraries. 

 The name is the clue to further knowledge, its starting 

 point, even the hook upon which further information is to 

 be hung. Whatever advanced scientists may say to the 

 contrary, their first effort — perhaps it is an unconscious 

 one — but their first real effort is to ascertain the name of 



their new siDecimen. If it has none, they at once proceed 

 to give it one. All the wild talk about the desirability of 

 learning the name is wrong in principle. The name is, as 

 everyone will cheerfully admit, only of secondary im- 

 portance when compared with a study of habits or mor- 

 phology, but it is as essential, since it is, and ever must 

 be, the starting point for further investigations, at least 

 on the part of the amateur." So the author has put much 

 time into the making of these artificial keys, and there is 

 uo reason for not thinking that they will serve an excel- 

 lent purpose in showing the way into the labyrinth of the 

 Algse and Desmids of the United States. J. F. J. 



Human Embryology. By Charles Sedgwick Minot. New 



York, William Wood & Co. 1892. 815 p. 



We are extensive compilers of medical works in this 

 country, but are far behind both England and Germany 

 in biological text-books, This important work, by Pro- 

 fessor Charles Sedgwick Minot, of the Harvard University 

 Medical School, is actually the first of its kind which can 

 be compared favorably with many similar works done 

 abroad. It is written both for the student of medicine 

 and of biology, and in the past few months since its 

 appearance has taken its place in both these departments 

 of science as a standard, based upon the higher modern 

 conception of medicine as applied biology. 



By the labors of Gegenbaur, Turner, Cunningham, the 

 death knell of human anatomy taught per se has been 

 sounded. It is safe to predict that not only in the brain, 

 but in the muscles and viscera, all medical teaching of 

 the near future will advance to the long ignored truth 

 that man is not only a vertebrate, but a mammal and a 

 descendant of the primates, and that a thoroughly intelli- 

 gent conception of the human body can only be gained 

 by comparison. Professor Minot will do much to further 

 this progressive idea in medical instruction in this volume, 

 which might very appropriately be called a text-book of 

 vertebrate embryology. In human embryology we are, of 

 course, limited to material obtained after death or by 

 accident, and, considering these limitations, we are sur- 

 prised by the vast amount of information which the 

 author has brought together upon strictly human develop- 

 ment, in addition to the ample treatment of the general 

 features of development of lower types. 



These results of ten years' original research and careful 

 compilation from Kolliker, Hertwig, Balfour, Duval, his 

 and others, are brought together in a volume of nine 

 hundred pages which reflects the greatest credit both 

 upon the author and the publisher. There are five hun- 

 dred illustrations, many of them entirely original and 

 altogether admirably printed. The work, as a whole, 

 marks a greaf step forward, because it maintains a high 

 level both in thoroughness and in form of publication, as 

 the two essential elements of a successful work. It is 

 difiS-Cult for any one not an embryologist to appreciate the 

 labor represented in these pages. The prop^ress of this 

 branch of science has been so rapid, both in respect to 

 fact and to theory, that in a work covering so much 

 ground it is impossible to keep pace with fact and theory. 

 It is this circumstance which should temper our criticism 

 of some portions of the work which are not quite ujj to 

 date. 



The volume opens, appropriately, with a description of 

 the uterus and a general outline of human development. 

 The history of the ova and spermatozoa follows, conclud- 

 ing with the theories of sex. The author is well 

 known as having early advanced the theory that the 

 mature sexual elements differ in respect to sex, stated 

 broadly, that th« ovum is a female and the spermatozoan 

 is a male cell. Now, this theory, with others of a similar 

 character, has broken down under the criticisms of Weis- 

 mann and researches of Hertwig, and has been generally 



