XI. B. 4 Reviews 185 



the use of anesthetics. After sketching the development of 

 anesthetics, it compares, very favorably to the latter, the phar- 

 macology and the results of the practical use of the morphin- 

 scopolomin mixture (known as "twilight sleep") and of nitrous 

 oxide and oxygen in obstetrical work. 



The second section, entitled Eutocia, considers certain unsatis- 

 factory features of the general conditions that surround the 

 present-day practice of obstetrics in the home and the hospital. 

 A strong case is prepared statistically to show that the maternal 

 death rates are, even with modern knowledge of asepsis, anes- 

 thetics, and obstetrical technique, unnecessarily high. This mor- 

 tality seems largely due to puerperal infections which, under 

 proper conditions, are avoidable. 



The third part deals with nitrous oxid-oxygen analgesia in 

 obstetrics. The results of practice in the Presbyterian Hospital 

 of Chicago are analyzed to show the advantages of the analgesia 

 over ordinary labor without anesthetics. The technique of the 

 analgesia is considered, its simplicity, which even permits the 

 patient to administer her own gas, is emphasized, and certain 

 pertinent points for caution are noted. 



This unpretentious little monograph seems clearly to point 

 the way to a safe and practicable means of relieving the 

 parturient woman of much of the suffering and nerve shock 

 that ordinarily accompanies the condition. This is in line with 

 the extension of the use of this analgesia in dental and in 

 certain simpler surgical operations. 



H. W. W. 



A Handbook | of | Infant Feeding | by | Lawrence T. Royster, M. D. | 

 [5 lines] | illustrated | St. Louis | C. V. Mosby Company | 1916 | Cloth, 

 pp. 1-144. Price, $1.25. 



Within recent years a good number of handbooks have been 

 written on infant feeding. Many of them have justified their 

 publication, while others seem to be somewhat superfluous. In 

 the little volume under review the author has attempted to 

 furnish the busy practitioner, in "a compact and succinct form," 

 with the essential and practical side of infant feeding, leaving 

 aside all the conflicting and theoretical points of this important 

 subject of pediatrics. 



The book contains fifteen chapters and one appendix, which 

 includes the commentaries upon the various constituents of the 

 food; the growth and development and the stools of infants; 

 natural and artificial feeding; the care of premature infants; 

 the digestive disturbance of both breast- and bottle-fed infants ; 



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