366 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
upon Wine, the Vine, and the Grape, and yet in not one of them is the 
subject properly handled. It is one thing to write a lively, chatty work upon 
the subject of wines — any one possessed of a facile pen and means of 
compiling can do this, — but it is no such easy task to wo-ite a book in which 
the respective actions of the several species of wines are accurately discussed. 
We think we may safely assert that in no instance has the latter result been 
achieved. Mr. Sheen’s production does not form an exception to this general 
statement. It is an interesting, amusing little volume, in which those who 
like to know something of the history of wines, their preparation and poetry, 
will find much information. We may add, too, that, since the book is in 
great part composed of matter drawn from previously published essays, it 
gives the reader a comprehensive glance at the whole literature of the subject. 
When Mr. Sheen confines himself to compiling facts, he is very successful, 
and dresses his matter in simple but pithy language ; but when he strays 
into the wider domain of philosophical induction, he commits himself 
deplorably. To those familiar with chemistry, the statement that beer does not 
owe its inebriating property solely to alcohol will appear rather startliug. If 
the writer confounds the stupefying quality with the tnily intoxicating, then 
he may be right, inasmuch as the bitter principle of the hop possesses a 
narcotic action ; but he is by no means clear on this point. Agaiu, when 
speaking of the action of the German wines in preventing the formation of 
calculi, he falls into some sad mistakes. Liebig, Prout, and others attributed 
the medicinal results to the action of these wines in forming soluble salts 
with the mineral materials which form” calculi ; but Mr. Sheen has an idea 
of his own upon the question, and he does not hesitate to put it forward. It 
is this ; in these countries “ mothers are continually dosing their children 
with magnesia, which, being insoluble, forms dangerous concretions in the 
bowels, and lays the train for the formation in after-life of stone and 
calculus.” Eeally we must be pardoned for telling the writer that he has 
formed a very startling and extraordinary theory. How, if magnesia is 
insoluble, can it be taken up into the' system in order to form calculi ? 
Admitting its insolubility, how does it contrive to surmount the trifling 
anatomical difficulty of passing from the alimentary canal to the vesica ? and 
what is the nature of the curious “ train” to which he refers ? Although we 
have found some faults in the volume which Mr. Sheen has issued, we regard 
it, on the whole, as a well-written, pleasant little book, by no means 
scientific, but filled with an amount of information which the general reader 
will hardly find embraced by any single work of its class. We believe that 
the production of treatises of the kind is “ more honoured in the breach than 
in the observance,” and therefore our strictures must be considered by the 
author as for the most part applicable to the entire race of vinous literature. 
