December 18, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



35 



tages of the graphic method as a means of illus- 

 trating principles and presenting statistical state- 

 ments, the significance of which is understood 

 Avith so much difficulty by the ordinary student. 

 Professor Laughhn recognizes the utility of history 

 and statistics, but he treats them rather as means 

 of illustration and verification of what has other- 

 wise been ascertained, than as the source of new 

 principles. Professor Laughlin also attempts to 

 divorce ethics and economics. 



A feature of the book is a ' teachers' hbrary,' 

 excellent on the whole, though omissions are no- 

 ticeable. No history of the science is mentioned. 

 Even such a weU-known and valuable work as 

 Thorold Rogers' ' Work and wages ' finds no place, 

 and the same is trae of the works of Wagner and 

 Knies. Communism and socialism, irrespective 

 of the value of their theories, have assumed an 

 historical imiDortance sufficient to demand a careful 

 study of theu' principles by teachers of political 

 economy ; yet none of their leading exponents are 

 referred to. Under ' Reports and statistics,' the 

 author fails to notice those valuable sources of 

 information, the reports of the state bureaus of 

 labor statistics, as well as other valuable state pub- 

 hcations. 



The object of the book is good, and the work is 

 a valuable addition to our too scanty literature on 

 the subject of method in teacliing political econ- 

 omy. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons announce the publica- 

 tion of a monthly paper to begin January, 1886, 

 to be entitled The national argus. This paper 

 will be devoted to the discussion of questions re- 

 lating to the care of the insane, the idiotic, the 

 deaf and dumb, the blind, paupers, and homeless 

 children. 



— II morgagni of Nov. 3 reports that Dr. 

 Freire of Rio Janeiro has inoculated more than 

 three hundred persons with a liquid culture of 

 the yeUow-fever microbe. Such inoculations are 

 performed with five or six punctures in one arm, 

 and in a few hours afterwards the patient com- 

 plains of headache and backache, with a sHght 

 rise of temperature. Nausea and vomiting occur 

 in rare cases. These symptoms sometimes last 

 between two and three days, but they are never 

 serious. The inoculations are practised on indi- 

 viduals who were in the centre of the infected 

 locahty. None of them died, and only very few 

 presented mUd forms of yeUow fever. 



— Lord Crawford cables, Dec. 16, the discovery 

 by Gove of a new star, in the place of D. M. 20°, 

 1172, possibly a variable. It was of the 6th mag. 

 on Dec. 13. 



— Kane's ' European butterflies ' is meant to 

 replace Kirby's little manual published more than 

 twenty years ago, and is, indeed, a much more 

 complete work, with excellent illustrations of over 

 100 butterflies ; but it is sadly deficient just where 

 we most need help, and where Kirby did aU that 

 was then possible, for it pays no attention what- 

 ever to the early stages or food plants of these 

 insects, any allusions to them being merely 

 incidental. It is of value, therefore, only to a 

 student of the old school, or the old-fashioned 

 collector. In its details as to geographical distri- 

 bution it is worthy of all praise. 



— The Smithsonian institution has issued a 

 price-list of its publications, which are no longer 

 distributed gratuitously to individuals, as formerly; 

 and no wonder, when they already exceed six 

 hundred. The prices which have been affixed are 

 high as compared to government publications in 

 general, though an ordinary publisher would look 

 on them as rather low. Considering the object of 

 the institution, one is inclined to wish the prices 

 had been made somewhat lower ; and to attach 

 any price at all to some of them, such as ch-culars, 

 seems not worth the pains. Nearly a third of the 

 publications are out of print, and therefore not 

 embraced in the list. 



— With the beginning of the coming year, the 

 two leading meteorological journals — the Austrian 

 and the German — will be consolidated, and will 

 appear under the joint editorship of Drs. Hann 

 and Koppen. The composite jom-nal will be 

 known simply as the Meteorologische zeitschrift. 

 It wiU be published by Asher & Co. of Berlin. 



— Dr. Latour's ' De la chaleur animale ' (Paris, 

 Bailliere, 1885) may be described as an attempt 

 by a person unacquainted with elementary facts 

 in physiology and anatomy to explain the pathol- 

 ogy and nature of fever. In reading it, one hardly 

 knows whether to be amused by its authors naif 

 self-conceit or to be exasperated by liis impudence. 

 As regards the color of the blood, we are informed 

 (p. 13) that "it is only by mixture with carbonic 

 acid . . . that this fluid takes the dark tint, — a tint 

 which it gives up to resume its brightness so soon 

 as this excrementitial gas has been rejected.'' It 

 is hardly necessary to point out that the bright 

 color of arterial blood is due to the fact that its 

 coloring-matter is combined with oxygen ; and the 

 dark color of venous blood, to the fact that most of 

 the haemoglobin has given up its oxygen, and that 



