RE VIEWS. 
183 
possible, so that the student might find within its covers all that is of 
importance in relation to the effects of electricity on the body. Dr. Althaus 
first gives an account of the different forms of electricity (employing, we are 
sorry to see, the objectionable word “ fluid ” throughout); then he states the 
results of the researches of Matteucci, Dubois Reymond, and others in the 
phenomena and laws of electro-physiology ; next he describes the different 
varieties of medical electric appliances, and their modes of application ; and, 
finally, he gives the history of a number of cases cured by electricity. The 
volume covers nearly 700 pages, and is literally crammed with illustrations. 
Dr. Althaus has not simply compiled ; he has exerted a certain amount of 
criticism, and is occasionally severe on those whose opinions differ from his 
own. Still his treatise is not the less useful for that, and we have pleasure 
in commending it to our readers. 
THE PROGRESS OF MEDICINE.* 
"jVTEVER was the parturiunt montes proverb more applicable than in the 
■L' case of the work which is now before us. Dr. Dobell attempted a task 
far too vast even for the College of Physicians to undertake. He apparently 
had little or no experience of the method of preparing abstracts of the pro- 
gress of science, and as a result we have a big volume without any satisfac- 
tory plan or arrangement, in which a multitude of facts, many of them not 
worth narrating, are jumbled together higgledy-piggledy, so that it is quite 
impossible, without considerable labour, to ascertain what is said to have 
been done on any special subject. Dr. Dobell’s scheme appears to have been to 
write to a number of persons in various parts of the world, without very much 
discrimination as to their ability for the duty he asked them to perform, to 
send him their ideas of the progress of medicine in their particular locality. 
Some of these correspondents replied to him, and hence we are bored with a 
series of uncompressed, diluted communications, which have no value what- 
ever to the scientific man. Here and there are a few abstracts of interest, 
but they are rare, and very difficult to disinter from the huge mass of rubbish 
which constitutes the bulk of the volume. We have never had the mis- 
fortune to read a book with so little scientific character about it ; and we 
can only hope, for the sake of the reputation which English science has 
obtained abroad, that this book may not be considered in any way repre- 
sentative of English medicine. Dr. Dobell promises us future volumes, but 
we shall be very much surprised if he does not find the a scientific and 
practical ” medical men of this country too much dissatisfied with the first 
volume to venture to invest in the second. We are sorry thus to have to 
speak of what was, at all events, well-intentioned as an effort, but which 
has certainly been, in our opinion, a lamentable waste of time and type. 
* “Reports on the Progress of Practical and Scientific Medicine in 
different parts of the World (for the Year beginning June 1, 1868, and 
ending June 1, 1869).” Edited by Horace Dobell, M.D. London: Long- 
mans. 
