REVIEWS. 
189 
perpetuation of those preventive diseases which are a scandal to the country. 
It explains the influence of artificial conditions and methods of life on the 
young and old, and very ably notes the influence and reactions of destitution 
on disease. It is pleasant to read the grateful recognition of the services of 
“ the great master in sanitary science and craft in this country, John 
Simon,” a man to whom England owes a mighty debt of gratitude, a man 
who has saved and not slain his thousands, and who in our present, militant, 
money-grubbing, semi-barbarism is plain “John Simon.” The primer on 
“ Alcohol : its Use and Abuse,” will not please either the total abstainer or 
the wine-selling grocer tribe. It is written by a thinker, and the following 
sentences prove it : — “ Moral character is very largely influenced by habit, 
by the acquired control of the highest cerebral centres over the lower ; and 
hence the continual paralysis of that control, and the constant abolition of 
all power of self-restraint, must, of course, aid largely in moral deteriora- 
tion.” “ The habitual drunkard is morally defective from the outset, and his 
habits give full play to the action of all the lower tendencies of his nature. 
Drunkenness is more a vice than a disease.” The author then affirms, with 
regard to moderate or excessive drinking, “ that whatever quantity causes any 
temporary loss of moral control does, if repeated, lead to moral deterioration, 
but that short of this no such result is produced.” At the close of this book 
there is a very solemn warning against the use of stimulants in painful 
diseases ; it is for the especial benefit of those who run a chance of being 
made slaves to the bottle by illogical medici. The house we live in — too 
often a den of malignant bacteria, bad gases, and smells — is treated of in one 
of the primers in a very downright manner. If builders have consciences, 
and would only read this book, what a blessing it would be ! The remaining 
volumes are on the special subjects of exercise and baths, and, like the others, 
are full of suggestions and of very good advice. We can earnestly recom- 
mend these able volumes to the public. 
E may call the attention of those of our readers who are interested in 
geology to the very useful Catalogue of the contents of the library of 
the Museum of Practical Geology, which has just been published. It has 
been prepared . with great care by Mr. Henry White, the compiler of the 
Royal Society’s catalogue of scientific memoirs, and Mr. T. W. Newton, the 
assistant-librarian at Jermyn Street, and is not only an excellent example of 
a practical library-catalogue, but, from the nature of its contents, giving 
as it does a list of accumulations of geological and mineralogical works 
especially during a period of some twenty-seven years, it will prove exceed- 
ingly useful, even apart from the library to which it particularly relates, as 
an index to the literature of geology and the allied sciences. Very wisely the 
compilers have abstained from all fancy methods of arrangement, and have 
* “ A Catalogue of the Library of the Museum of Practical Geology and 
Geological Survey,” Compiled by Henry White and Thomas W. Newton. 
8vo. London : Printed for Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. 1878. 
THE LIBRARY OF THE MUSEUM OF PRACTICAL 
GEOLOGY.* 
