202 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 275 



prentices, young girls from seventeen to nineteen years of age, not 

 related, from three adjoining villages, who took it in turn to remain 

 in the house and sleep with her, each one weel< at a time. During 

 their apprenticeship. Miss R. was taken with phthisis, of which she 

 died. In less than two years afterwards, all three apprentices died 

 of phthisis, although in the family-history of each no trace of 

 phthisis existed ; and the parents, brothers, and sisters of two are 

 alive and well at this time. 



Another interesting case was related l^y Mr. G. F. Blake of 

 Mosely, Birmingham, in which a perfectly healthy child, with a 

 family-history free from all trace of tubercle, was reported as be- 

 coming infected by a phthisical nurse, and having died with profuse 

 hemoptysis, after the disease had run a rapid course. 



Dr. Porter gives the following facts which have come under his 

 own observation. He says, " In more than three hundred cases of 

 phthisis, I have kept a record of the family-history, and find that 

 fifty-one per cent of this number were of families in which some 

 other case had occurred. The inquiry extended no farther than to 

 first-cousins. Heretofore this would be accepted as evidence in 

 favor of the heredity of phthisis, but I now believe that in many of 

 these cases the disease was acquired by the carrying of the products 

 of disease to a subject whose physical condition favored its recep- 

 tion and development. I recall the case of Mrs. L., in whose fam- 

 ily was no trace of phthisis. Before her marriage, and for several 

 years after, she was the ideal of a healthy woman. Two children 

 were born. Her husband, a well-known city official, had phthisis. 

 Her attendance upon him was constant, and for some months be- 

 fore his death she and the younger child were with him night and 

 day. When called to attend him, I found that he had been substi- 

 tuting for the ordinary cuspidore a newspaper spread upon the 

 floor at his bedside, and this would be loaded with sputa each 

 morning. The case was rapid. The husband died, and within 

 eighteen months Mrs. L. and the younger child also died from 

 phthisis ; while the elder daughter, who was comparatively little in 

 the sick-room, still lives, and is well and strong. I have the notes 

 of other instances almost as instructive, but this will suffice." 



The author thinks that the disease may be conveyed in two prin- 

 cipal ways, — first, by air carrying particles of disease into the respi- 

 ratory tract ; second, by food from infected sources, through the 

 alimentary tract. In reference to these propositions, he says, " The 

 first of these propositions is, I think, proven. Not only are the 

 experiments and records here given powerful affirmations, but there 

 is in the profession a steadily increasing belief in its truth which 

 would require much more negative testimony than has yet been 

 offered. I would not be misunderstood. I do not think that as 

 yet we can sustain the statement that phthisis is contagious, — ac- 

 quired by mere contact ; or infectious, if the term be limited to im- 

 ply a hidden subtile miasm communicating the disease : but I do 

 hold that particles of matter from the site of disease in a phthisical 

 patient may be carried, planted in suitable soil, and incite phthisis. 

 I cannot think that all are liable to so acquire the disease. I would 

 go further, and say that probably only those may so contract phthisis 

 who have lowered their vitality through previous sickness or long 

 watching in the sick-room, or those who have local congestion or 

 inflammation in the respiratory tract. The fixation of a minute par- 

 ticle of dried sputum from a phthisical cavity, upon a point of irri- 

 tation in the respiratory tract of a non-phthisical patient, may con- 

 stitute an effective inoculation." 



In reference to the second proposition, that phthisis may be 

 caused by eating the flesh of tuberculous animals, or drinking 

 the milk of tuberculous cows, he thinks this is to be received with 

 the same limitations as the first ; i.e., that there are conditions 

 which favor the development already existing in the individual. He 

 offers the following suggestions for the prevention of the extension 

 of the disease: there should be frequent change of the atmos- 

 phere in the sick-room, complete disinfection of all clothing or ves- 

 sels holding expectorated material ; and the close confinement of 

 any relative of, or attendant upon, a phthisical patient should be 

 forbidden. He believes the day is at hand when the physician will 

 recognize that it is as much his duty to examine the food that his 

 patient eats, or the milk that is ordered for the sick child, as it is 

 his province to see that the drugs he prescribes are pure and well 

 compounded. 



BOOK-REVIEW.S. 



The Nei-vous System and the Mind. By CHARLES Mercier, 

 M.B. London and New York, Macmillan. 8°. 



The announcement of the publication of this work raised great 

 expectations, not alone because, in the interesting development 

 through which the problem of the relations of body and mind is 

 now passing, every promising contribution is certain to arouse great 

 interest, but especially because any systematic treatise written some- 

 what from the psychological point of view is a great desideratum. 

 The contents of such a work would be suggested by its function, 

 which should be to serve as a propsedeutic for the study of psychol- 

 ogy, as well as to make clear to the general reader the position of 

 modern science on this all-important question. Dr. Mercier's book 

 does not fill this gap, nor was it intended to do so. His object is a. 

 simpler and a narrower one. Realizing the aversion of students of 

 insanity to studies of the normal manifestations of mind, he is de- 

 sirous of preparing for their special use a work that shall show how 

 unscientific it is to attempt to restore a disordered mind to its nor- 

 mal functioning, without a precise and systematic knowledge of 

 what those normal functions are. The object is certainly a most 

 worthy one, and the more so because Dr. Mercier makes no secret 

 of advocating tlie study of the philosophical aspects of mind on the 

 part of medical students ; not that he has any intentions of deluging 

 them with metaphysics, but simply to impress them with the inti- 

 mate relation of the problems with one aspect of which their 

 specialty is concerned to the broad culture problems of humanity. 



When we pass from the design to the execution, the work begins- 

 to be a disappointment. To enable the prospective reader of the 

 work to judge of the validity of this verdict, a brief sketch of the 

 contents of the book may be of service. The work contains three 

 parts ; the first treating of the physical and physiological functions 

 of the nervous system, the second of its psychological functions, 

 and the third of mind. Before starting upon the consideration of 

 nervous function, we are gravely warned to bear well in mind the 

 supreme and absolute distinction between mental and physical 

 phenomena.: the two are utterly heterogeneous, disparate, incom- 

 mensurable ; and all that we know is the parallelism that exists 

 between them. With this distinction and this concomitance well 

 impressed, the author is sanguine enough to believe that " the- 

 student will enter on the study of psychology with half his difficul- 

 ties already surmounted." Under the head of the physical func- 

 tions of nervous tissue, the cells and fibres are represented as mole- 

 cules acted upon by a force, and the attempt is made, by the aid of 

 more or less ingenious analogies, to demonstrate the possibility of 

 the ^nervous system as we know it acting as the special agent of 

 psychological functions. The most interesting and valuable por- 

 tion of the book is undoubtedly that on the physiological functions 

 of the nervous system ; and much of this value is derived from the 

 incorporation of Dr. Hughlings-Jackson's views on the interpreta- 

 tion of movements in terms of nervous discharges. The important 

 distinction between ' central ' and 'peripheral' movements is ad- 

 mirably described. On entering the psychological portion of the 

 work, we feel at once the atmosphere that surrounds disciples of Mr> 

 Herbert Spencer. As long as the general line of thought due 

 to Mr. Spencer is applied to the evolution of conduct, or the ever- 

 improving and more and more elaborate adaptation of organism to- 

 environment, the result is in more than one sense successful ; but 

 in the chapters on ' The Constitution of Mind,' on 'Thought,' on 

 ' Feeling,' and in the three chapters on ' Classification of the Feel- 

 ings,' the interest becomes a very formal and theoretical one, and 

 amounts to little more than a digest of Spencer somewhat modified 

 and elaborated. It will thus be seen that Dr. Mercier presumes a 

 knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the nervous systen-i 

 on the part of his readers, and wants to interest them in one par- 

 ticular aspect of their interpretation. This certainly does not ap- 

 peal to the student of insanity. Not only does Dr. Mercier neglect 

 to consider how very much of what he regards as most important 

 is liable to be entirely modified by future research: but there is a 

 vast and ever-increasing material from which it is being attempted, 

 by strictly scientific methods to build up a science of psychology 

 that shall immediately appeal, by its intrinsic importance, to stu- 

 dents of psychiatry, and of this development Dr. Mercier takes no 



