686 
[November, 
Analyses of Books . 
known causes has been demonstrated. Those who carefully read 
this paper will scarcely find their respect for Dr. Beale as a 
thinker undiminished. 
Dr. E. Bayard communicates a paper bearing the unhappy 
title “ Homoeopathy as a Science.” One of the first signs of 
the approaching millennium will be a cessation of this misuse 
of the term Science. It has been again and again enforced by 
men of the highest ability that Science merely perceives and 
declares what exists. To do anything, or to instruct man how 
or what to do, belongs in the province not of Science, but of Art. 
Homoeopathy, whether it be the corredt method of treating 
disease or no, — a question into which we cannot enter, — is no 
more a Science than allopathy, or than metallurgy, or pyrotech- 
nics, all arts aiming at certain ends. 
Dr. F. Oswald gives one of his clever, but one-sided, papers 
on the u Remedies of Nature.” He denounces tea and coffee as 
evils of the same class as tobacco, opium, and alcohol, to which 
they lead the way. As usual he advocates vegetarianism. He 
speaks of Bichat proving “ that our digestive organs are those 
of a frugivorous [phytophagous] animal.” We would defy any 
Bichat to prove that our digestive organs are less adapted for a 
mixed diet than are those of the majority of the Rodents (Mu- 
ridas, Sciuridas, &c.), of the Suidas, or of the monkeys, which 
are well known to consume eggs and insedls — animal matter as 
truly as beef or mutton. Dr. Oswald tells us that the first taste 
of every poison is either insipid or repulsive. Is this the case 
with certain poisonous fishes and fungi, and with some kinds of 
poisonous honey ? “ The only safe, consistent, and effedtive 
plan is Total Abstinence from all Poisons.” But if we are en- 
tirely to abstain from all substances which would prove fatal or 
injurious if taken in large doses or in a concentrated form, our 
diet will be strangely limited. The ordinary garden fruits and 
vegetables contain such acids as the tartaric, malic, citric, &c. 
Are they therefore to be rejedted ? Nevertheless there is too 
much truth in the paper before us. 
“ The Historical Development of Modern Nursing,” by Dr. A. 
Jacobi, corredts a widespread error. It is commonly supposed 
that hospitals are an outcome of Christianity ; but the author 
shows that they existed in Ceylon, under Buddhist auspices, in 
the second, and even in the fifth, century before the Christian 
era. May not their absence in the days of classical antiquity be 
in part due to a smaller prevalence of chronic disease ? With 
the abolition of the baths public health must undoubtedly have 
declined. 
