io6 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 291 



of any great-circle track previously laid down, just as the rhumb 

 course and distance are measured on the Mercator chart. These 

 principles were recognized in the construction of the great-circle 

 charts issued by the Hydrographic Office. The maturing of them, 

 and their publication in the form of the present excellent sailing- 

 charts, have been due to that office. They are now issued for the 

 North and South Atlantic Oceans, and Indian Ocean. The plate 

 for the latter was used to reproduce, by electrotyping, plates for the 

 North and South Pacific Oceans. It is expected that this series of 

 sailing-charts will be completed before July i, 1889. Those already 

 published have been received with great favor, and have under- 

 gone severe tests for accuracy and utility ; and numerous reports 

 have been received testifying to their usefulness in lessening the 

 labor of computations on the great-circle route. 



The general lack of the practical application of the principles of 

 great-circle sailing in the past seems to have resulted, not from the 

 want of recognition of the fact that the shortest distance between 

 any two points on the earth's surface is the arc of the great circle 

 passing through them, nor that the great-circle course is the only 

 true course, but from the tedious operations which have been neces- 

 sary, and from the want of concise methods for rendering these bene- 

 fits readily available. 



Sanitation in India. 



Mr. B. F. Bonham, United States consul-general at Calcutta, 

 has sent to the State Department an abstract of a lecture by Mr. 

 Justice Cunningham, at the Parkes Museum, on ' Sanitation in 

 India,' from which the following interesting extracts are made : — 



" The views of the sanitary parties in India might be summarized 

 in the following proportions : that the mortality of the population is 

 vastly in excess of that of civilized countries, and in particular cannot 

 be calculated at less than 10 to 15 per thousand in excess of the 

 English rates, an excess making at least 2,500,000 of deaths and 

 50,000,000 cases of severe diseases ; that this excess, or a large por- 

 tion of it, is preventable by practical means fairly within human 

 competence; that the existing administrative machinery is power- 

 less to make any impression on this excessive mortality, but that its 

 tendency is rather to intensify it ; that there are reforms which 

 materially affect it, which might be adopted without grievance to 

 the people or detriment to the government finances, and that it is 

 the duty of the government to adopt such reforms. As to the ex- 

 cessive mortality, the lecturer pointed out that wherever registra- 

 tion approached completeness there were high ratios of 30 per 

 thousand and more, the central provinces ratio being 34 and the 

 north-western provinces 32 ; that many large areas with populations 

 of a million and upwards showed ratios of 40 and 50 per thousand, 

 and many towns and municipalities showed ratios of 40, 60, 70, 80, 

 and even higher. Such ratios showed that the laws of health were 

 being contravened on an enormous scale. A curious instance of 

 the extreme prevalence of disease was shown in Calcutta, where, 

 out of a population of 445,000 persons, no less than 325,000 were 

 treated annually in public medical institutions. Coming next to 

 preventability, experience proved, that, wherever effective sanitation 

 was carried out, the ratios of Indian mortality sunk at once to that 

 of England. 



" The great mass of Indian mortality was occasioned by epi- 

 demic diseases, which are preventable or mitigable, and in England 

 have either disappeared or sunk' to insignificant proportions. The 

 Army Sanitary Commission gave what they call a ' deplorable rec- 

 ord ' of 38,000,000 of victims within a single decade to such diseases. 

 Coming to particular instances, the extraordinary reduction in the 

 mortality of the European army from 69 per thousand to 12 or 14, 

 and the invaliding ratio from 43 to 23, the cholera mortality from 

 9.24 to 1. 17, showed what sanitation could do in the case of men 

 newly exposed to a tropical climate. The reduction of the mortality 

 in jails was equally remarkable : it is now about one-third of the 

 former rate. In Madras the extraordinarily low ratio of 17.80 per 

 thousand had been attained. The high ratio of over 100 per thou- 

 sand in some Bengal jails pointed to active insanitary conditions of 

 soil, structure, or mismanagement. Another striking instance is 

 that afforded by those parts of Calcutta which have been properly 

 sanitated, which would compare favorably with the best parts of 

 London for healthiness, while the insanitary wards of the city are 



scourged with epidemics, — are the perennial home of cholera, — 

 and the suburbs of Calcutta have long been a scandal, not only to- 

 the Bengal Government, but to English civilization." 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



A Text-Book of Physiology. By John Gray M'Kendrick.. 

 Including Histology, by Phihp Stohr. In two volumes. Vol.. 

 I. General Physiology. New York, Macmillan. 8". $4. 



The book before us, which is but the first volume of M'Ken- 

 drick's 'Text- Book of Physiology,' is modelled to some extent on^ 

 his 'Outlines of Physiology,' although it has been so greatly ex- 

 tended in every direction as to make it an entirely new book. This- 

 volume treats of the general physiology of the tissues ; while the- 

 second, not yet published, but in the printer's hands, deals with 

 the special physiology of organs. 



In the introductory section the author discusses the nature and 

 objects of physiology, matter and energy, and the general princi- 

 ples of biology, including the organic form and mode of growth, the 

 evolutional history of living beings, and the theories of life. In the- 

 second section the chemistry of the body is treated ; the nature and 

 properties of the chemical substances found in the body, and the 

 nature of the chemical re-actions with which the phenomena of life- 

 are associated, being considered fully. The true value which 

 should be given to chemical formute by the physiological student 

 is specially explained by the author. The chapter on pigments is- 

 an exceedingly valuable one, the subject being treated more fully 

 than in any other text-book of physiology. 



Dr. M'Kendrick has been especially fortunate in being able to- 

 incorporate into his text-book Professor Stohr's ' Lehrbuch der 

 Histologie,' which, so far as we know, had not, up to this time, 

 been translated. The illustrations of this portion of the work are- 

 not diagrams, but drawings of real preparations, and remarkably 

 true to nature. 



The closing section treats of the contractile tissues. In it the 

 electrical apparatus employed in the study of muscle is described 

 and illustrated. The author believes, and we think rightly, that 

 the importance of the uses of electricity in practical medicine and 

 surgery justifies him in describing electrical apparatus. We are 

 somewhat surprised to find the statement that " the teacher has 

 usually to deal with students who know little or nothing about 

 physics." We had supposed that the student, before being per- 

 mitted to begin the study of medicine in the United Kingdom, must 

 be well prepared in physics, and are therefore surprised to hear one 

 who is undoubtedly in a position to know, say that he knows " little 

 or nothing " about it. It appears, however, from 6ur author's 

 preface, that an examination in mechanics is required as a prelimi- 

 nary ; but this, he says, is of no use, being just sufficient to worry 

 the student and exhaust his energies, without conferring any real 

 benefit in the shape of a knowledge of the principles of physical 

 science. It is on account of this ignorance on the part of students 

 that certain details as to physics are introduced into this text- 

 book. Taken as a whole, the first volume of Dr. M'Kendrick's 

 book is a most valuable one, and we shall look for the second with 

 great interest. If he succeeds as well in his treatment of special 

 as he has succeeded with general physiology, his text-book will be 

 entitled to a prominent place among the best text-books of physi- 

 ology. 



Electrical Jnst?-ument Making for Amateurs. By S. R. BOT- 

 TONE. 2d ed. New York, Van Nostrand. $1.20. 



In the preface to this work Mr. Bottone says, " Nearly all the really 

 useful inventions and discoveries which have rendered the nine- 

 teenth century so remarkable as a season of progress must be at- 

 tributed to amateurs. For this reason, if for no other, we should 

 render every assistance in our power to the bona fide amateur." 

 Mr. Bottone's idea of a bona fide amateur is difficult to conceive. 

 He would claim a wide meaning for the word if he included Fara- 

 day, Maxwell, Joule, Thomson, and Rayleigh, in his own country. 

 Still there is no need of quarrelling about a definition, or of asking 

 by whom the useful work of this century has been done. Mr. Bot- 

 tone's book is a helpful and a needed one, and has much to com- 



