48 Literary Notices. 



literary acquirements. Part V. (Longmans.) — The good opinion 

 we formed of this work (physiology excepted) is confirmed as it 

 goes on. It will he a very valuable hook for general reference. 

 The present part (V.) begins with Gr, gets as far as I, as Iguanadon. 



Homes Without Hands. By the Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A., P.L.S. 

 (Longmans.) Part XIX. contains the usual variety of interesting 

 matter. The frontispiece exhibits the albatross with its nest. The 

 other illustrations are excellent, and the letter-press ranges from 

 the homes of various insects to those of mice. Part XX., which 

 completes the work, commences with a striking landscape picture 

 of the elk. Moths and birds, besides the elk, occupy its pages ; and 

 although throughout the work the arrangement is not technically 

 scientific, it has assisted the author's purpose of providing varied 

 and entertaining reading. 



Foe and Against Tobacco. By Benjamin Ward Richardson, M.A., 

 M.D., Senior Physician to the Royal Infirmary for Diseases of the 

 Chest. (Churchill.) — Dr. Richardson embodies his researches into the 

 action of tobacco on the human frame, in a stout pamphlet, contain- 

 ing a great deal of interesting matter, and yet not quite satisfactory, 

 partly from the difficulties naturally pertaining to the subject, and 

 partly from his not adequately discriminating the different effects 

 of large and small doses of the fumes which smokers take into their 

 mouths. Watery vapour, free carbon, ammonia, carbonic acid, and 

 an oily product composed of nicotine, a volatile substance of an em- 

 pyreamatic odour, and a bitter resinous extract, are the substances 

 which he finds in tobacco smoke. The quantity of these materials 

 taken into the system will depend upon the quality of the tobacco, 

 and the mode of smoking it. One good Havannah cigar is found 

 by Dr. Richardson to yield enough poisonous matter, when its smoke 

 is condensed, to induce active convulsions in a rabbit, and six pipes 

 of common shag tobacco yield sufficient poison to destroy a rabbit 

 in three minutes. Before a smoker has got used to his occupation, 

 the tobacco produces, as is well known, considerable discomfort and 

 disturbance ; and judging by comparison with what he has observed 

 in lower animals, Dr. Richardson conceives the brain of the patient 

 to be pale and empty of blood, his stomach to be reddened in round 

 spots, his lungs to be as pale as those of a dead calf, his heart over- 

 burdened with blood and contracting feebly, " every fibre being 

 impregnated with a substance which holds it in bondage, and will 

 not let it go." After a few experiments, the unpleasant effects are 

 moderated, and cease, the poisonous matter being eliminated by the 

 skin, the lungs, and the kidneys. If the lungs are weak or ob- 

 structed, the smoker becomes saturated with the products of the 

 weed, and not only his clothes, but his skin, diffuses odours that 

 remind one of a concentrated extract of taproom, and which no nasal 

 organ could commend. The volatile tobacco poisons escape by the 

 skin and lungs, the nicotine and bitter extract enter the body in 

 solution with the saliva, and are supposed to be discharged by the 

 kidneys. " In the confirmed smoker there is undoubtedly a con- 

 stant functional disturbance ; i. c. } his organs are doing work which 



