178 REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS.

the grey matter around the aqueduct of Sylvius. The sym-ptoms must have been due to a gradual involvement of theexternal muscles of the eyeball but sparing those for accom-modation. The sixth nucleus had been entirely unaffected.The glioma arising in the grey matter had grown backwardsalong the aqueduct and upwards into the third ventricle.

Dr. ALEXANDER JAMES read a description of a case of -Landry’s Paralysis and Dr. R. A. FLEMING gave an

account of the pathological conditions present in thecase. Dr. James stated that when influenza attackedthe nervous system specially all kinds of effects mightbe produced. It might affect special nerves alone. Inthree patients admitted into Dr. James’s ward within a fewweeks of one another, all suffering from influenza, a rapidlyproduced paralysis extending from below upwards wasnoticed (Landry’s paralysis). One typical case was

the following. A young woman, aged 23 years, was

admitted to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on Jan. 31st,1900, suffering from pains in the head and back anddelirium. The influenza had existed for two weeks

previously to her admission and she had also sufferedfrom the same disease seven months previously. Theheadache had been very severe and before her admissionshe had suffered much from insomnia, crying out con-

stantly and meaninglessly, and being so noisy that herfriends thought of sending her to an asylum. She wassensible at times and complained of the globus hystericus.When first examined on Jan. 31st her temperature was103° F., her pulse was 130, and her respiration was 22. Shewould not answer questions, but cried out continuously forhours together. She lay on her back and did not moveeither her legs or arms. The urine and faeces were passedinvoluntarily. Sensibility to touch and pain seemed normal.The volitional power of arms and legs was lost. Therewas no distinct evidence of paralysis of the diaphragm.Cheyne-Stokes breathing was present while the girl wasawake, but during sleep the breathing was normal. Bothsuperficial and deep reflexes were absent and the powerof swallowing was greatly impaired. Later the breathingbecame more rapid for perhaps half a minute and thenquieter. She complained of pain behind the sternumand the upper lip was noticed not to move well as

she spoke. Shortly after this her head shook violently,she became wildly delirious, and died soon afterwards.For about 10 days she exhibited the ordinary symptoms ofinfluenza, then a paralysis gradually spreading from the lowerextremities to the nervous centres in the medulla ensued.-Dr. FLEMING described the pathological conditions whichwere present. Excepting an incipient broncho-pneumonianear the root of the left lung no other marked visceral lesionwas present. The liver and kidneys showed cloudy swelling;the spleen weighed only four and a half ounces and wasacutely congested with a number of small hæmorrhages. Inthe brain the dura mater was firmly adherent posteriorly.The grey matter was markedly congested and showed

general oedema. The pia and arachnoid mater appeared to benormal. There were no degenerations in the columns of thespinal cord and an examination of the cells gave disappoint-ing results. In the medulla the cells were swollen and inthe anterior cornua of the cord the multipolar cells werealso swollen. The nuclei of these were distinctly eccentricin position and chromatolysis was present in a considerabledegree in these swollen cells. The cells in the anteriorhorns in the lumbar and cervical regions of the cord showeda marked atrophy but stained deeply, and numerous smallmicroscopic haemorrhages (really microscopic diapedesisof red corpuscles) not visible to the naked eye were present.

THE ROYAL HOSPITAL FOR INCURABLES AT

PUTNEY.-By the death of Mr. William Loney of St. Heliers,Jersey, this hospital becomes entitled to the residue of hisestate, which it is estimated will eventually amount to about£14,OOO..THE PARISH OF ST. GEORGE’S, HANOVER-SQUARE,

AND THE ST. PANCRAS SCANDAL.-In consequence ofthe recent evidence adduced at the official inquiry into thisscandal the Relief Committee of St. George’s, Hanover-square,has reported that " the question of gratuities was inquired intoin August, 1898, by the Schools and Asylums Committee, andin September of the same year by this committee, and onseveral occasions since the matter has been before other com-mittees of the board, and we are satisfied that so far as thisunion is concerned no such practice exists."

Reviews and Notices of Books.Refraction and How to Refract : including Sections on Optics,

Retinoscopy, the Fitting of Spectacles and Eyeplasses, &c.By JAMES THORINGTON, A.M., M.D., Adjunct Professorof Ophthalmology in the Philadelphia Polyclinic. With200 Illustrations, 13 of which are coloured. London:Rebman Limited. 1900. 8vo, pp. 301. Price 7s. 6d.

THE number of treatises dealing with the subject ofefraction since the appearance of Donders’s essay on thetefraction and Accommodation of the Eye, which it is thepecial glory of the New Sydenham Society to have causedo be written and published, is so great, the details have)een so thoroughly worked out and presented to the studentn so many forms from the elaborate work of Landolt, who:eems to have almost exhausted this branch of ophthalmicvork and practice, to the pamphlet of a few pages, that it islifficult for any writer, whatever may be his ability, to saynuch that is new or to do more than refer to such recent

mprovements or aids to examination as may have comeinder his notice.

Dr. Thorington’s volume commences with a series ofiefinitions of the terms commonly used in optics, givingbrief explanations of incident, emergent, reflected, refracted,divergent, and convergent rays ; positive and visual foci;the formation of images ; the numbering of prisms, and theforms and action of lenses. In regard to the numbering ofprisms the author remarks that formerly prisms were

numbered by their refracting angles, but that now othermethods are in use known as Dennett’s and Prentice’smethods. The unit or centrad in Dennett’s method is a

prism that will deviate a ray of light the one-hundredth

part of the arc of the radian. The radian is so much of thecircumference of a circle as will equal the length of itsradius of curvation. This is called the arc of the radianand equals 57’295 degrees. It is divided into 100 parts, anda prism base down at the centre of curvation that willdeviate a ray of light downwards just one-hundredth

part of the arc is a one centrad. M. Prentice’s method,the unit or prism dioptre, is a prism that will deflecta ray of light just one centimetre for each metre

of distance, that is the one-hundredth part of the

radius measured on the tangent. The various formsof test cards for the determination of the sharpness of

vision and the particulars of the mode of examination of thefundus by the direct and the indirect methods are fullygiven and there is an interesting chart showing at one viewall or most of the different forms of clocks that have been

proposed for the recognition of astigmia. The whole chapteron Astigmatism is well written, the author describing no lessthan 15 methods for its discovery. These are: corneal reflex,confusion letters, Placido’s disc, stenopæic slit, astigmaticchart, the pointed line test, perforated chart or disc, Pray’sletters, Schriner’s test, chromo-aberration or cobalt-blue test,Thomson’s ametrometer, the ophthalmometer, direct oph-thalmoscopy, cylinder lenses, and retinoscopy, and yet withall these mutually supporting or corrective methods mistakessometimes occur.

The etymology of the various terms in use is given, and ingeneral correctly, but there are some oversights. Thus thederivation of "ametropia" " is given à priv., µeT PO "a a

measure " ; " sight," instead of or oys ; and on thenext page "hyperopia" " is derived from u "over" ; eye, and the same error is repeated under I anisometropia."Pince-nez is spelt 11 pinc-nez." The reader will find someuseful information not usually given in similar treatises inregard to bifocal lenses and spectacle frames. The book

will prove serviceable to those who are dressers and house

179REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS.

surgeons in ophthalmic wards or to practitioners who wishto familiarise themselves with the modern methods of

correcting ametropia.

Commercial Organic Anaiysis. Vol. II., Part II. By ALFREDH. ALLEN, F.I.C., F.C.S. Third edition, with revisionsand additions by the Author and HENRY LEFFMAN, M.A.,M.D. Philadelphia. London: J. & A. Churchill. 1900.Pp. 330. Price 14s.IT was inevitable that Mr. Allen’s valuable series of

volumes on Commercial Organic Analysis should sooner or

later have to undergo revision. The progress of analyticalchemistry is so rapid as soon to render published methodseither obsolete altogether or unsatisfactory in some respect.The work as a whole, indeed, is chiefly valuable because inreality it consists of a trustworthy record of modern analyticalprocesses as applied to those substances which come underthe classification of the title of the work. Moreover, Mr.Allen’s experience as an analytical and consulting chemistgives him the position of being able to confirm or disproveany given process in vogue. Thus he frequently records hisown experience of various analytical processes which whenhe has found them unsatisfactory he has set to work uponwith the view of making them more reliable and perhaps atthe same time more expeditious. In this task he has metwith considerable success. The volume under notice dealswith the very important class of bodies-hydrocarbons,petroleum and coal tar products, asphalt, phenols, and

creosote. There are, therefore, chapters in it which relateto the purity of many antiseptics employed in medicine andin sanitation. The valuation of a given antiseptic bybacteriological methods is not described, though we thinka short chapter on this subject would have been useful to thepractising analyst. The chapter on Petroleum and ShaleProducts, as well as the chapters on Coal-tar Derivatives, aremost valuable. Obviously the present volume deals with thepetroleum question in its relation to a legalised flash-point.Mr. Allen points out that all petroleum with a flash-pointabove 73° F. was by the Act of 1879, and contrary to the 1871Act, freed from legislative restriction. The purpose of a Billnow (1899) pending in Parliament, he adds, is to substitutethe accurate or close test for the inaccurate or open test inthe Act of 1871 and to restore the 100° flash-point prescribedby that Act. Though this very accurately and simply definesthe position we doubt whether an Act will ever be introducedwhich will seriously interfere with the sale of petroleum,which is being sold without restriction at the present time.Again, opinion is very much divided as to whether thisinterference is needed.The work is one which is indispensable to the analyst,

while chemists generally will consult its pages with advan-

tage and confidence.

Micro-organisms and Fermentation. By ALFRED JÖRGEN-SEN. Translated by A. K. MILLER, Ph.D., F.I.C., andA. E. LEMMHOLM. Third Edition. London : MacmillanA.E.LEMMHOLM. Third Edition. London: Macmillanand Co. 1900. Pp. 318. Price 10s.

WE have before remarked upon the extraordinaryeconomic influence which a study of the habits of micro-

organisms is bringing to bear upon several great industries ;indeed, it is not too much to say that as our knowledgeof fermentative processes has deepened so has sprung up acomplete reformation in many industrial processes inwhich the action of micro-organisms is so intimatelyconcerned. After all, the application of this kind of

knowledge is quite old in principle, as must be admittedin the cases of horticulture and agriculture, for, inthe last words of the volume before us, "in order to obtainthe desired species of plant its seed should be sown free fromthe seed of all other plants." Iti was Hansen of the Carlsberglaboratories who first showed that by cultivating a pure

yeast a uniform product, whether wine or beer, could beobtained, and the results of this important discovery are nowapplied on a manufacturing scale in breweries, distilleries,and in the preparation of wines from the grape and otherfruit. Nor have Hansen’s discoveries stopped here, for purecultures of lactic acid bacteria have been successfully em-ployed for the souring of cream on a large scale much in thesame way as pure yeast has been employed for the manufac-ture of sound beer. Again, very important experiments have

been obtained with encouraging results in tobacco fermenta-tion with the view of producing a definite aroma in tobaccoleaves by the addition during fermentation of pure culturesof certain species of bacteria. It is all, in a word, a questionof the cultivation of species, the separation of the weed, so tospeak, from the true seed. This is the alpha and omega ofthe work before us. Mr. Jorgensen is a director of the

laboratory for the physiology and technology of fermentationat Copenhagen, and his work is therefore closely associatedwith the classic researches of Hansen of the Carlsberglaboratories. The present volume, it is not surprising tofind, is the third edition. The work of revision has been

brought into line with modern knowledge. The illustra-tions are 83 in number, but though true to the originalsubject they have no special merit of an artistic kind. Thework of translation is well done, and a clearer account ofthe subject we have not had the pleasure of reading. Thebook is eminently practical in character and thus appeals,as the author states, to chemists, botanists, and biologists,and likewise to those technologists who are engaged in thefermentation industries. Mr. Jorgensen is well known as amost active worker in the direction of the biology of yeasts inits application to industrial processes. His book is thereforenot only an excellent text-book for the man who requiresto study the subject practically, but it is also educational inanother direction, since it contains accounts of the results ofhis researches during recent years on many interestingaspects of the methods of cultivation. The book opens with

chapters on the apparatus used in bio-technical work and anaccount of the methods of examination. In fine the author

grapples with his subject in that clear and intelligiblemanner which admirably justifies the work being regardedas an excellent laboratory companion on this special branchof bacteriology which might be called " bio-technology."

Richeter’s Organic Chemistry Edited by Professor E..Richter’s Organic Chemistry. Edited by Professor R.

Professor Authorised translation by EDGAR F. SMITH,Professor of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania.Third edition from the eighth German edition. Vol. II.,Carbocyclic and Heterocyclic Series. London : Kegan,Paul, Trench, Trübner, and Co., Limited. 1900. Pp. 671.Price 15s.

THERE is something to be said in favour of the classifica-tion of the carbon compounds which Victor von Richter hasadopted in his classic work. In Vol. I , which was reviewedin THE LANCET of May 27th, 1899, p. 1436, the author dealtwith the chemistry of the aliphatic series-that is, with theso-called fatty compounds. In the present volume he dealswith carbocyclic compounds-that is, compounds containingclosed carbon chains or rings. In general these are alsoisocyclic compounds, because they consist of rings of atomsof one or the same element, as distinguished from hetero-cyclic compounds which may be regarded as ring skeletonsconsisting of atoms of various elements. Thus we have a

sharp classification of the whole of the compounds known tous which come under the generic term " organic." The-

alkaloids and a great number of the active principles ofplants used in medicine come obviously under considerationin the present volume. The work, however, deals with the-oretical rather than with practical considerations, and since-von Richter is one of the greatest authorities on classificationand constitution the work is one for acceptance. No subject

180 REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS.-NEW INVENTIONS.

could be wider than that of organic chemistry, but to deal withit as the author and translator have done within the compassof the comparatively small size of these two volumes is anachievement which has its demerits as well as its merits.

Every conceivable space on the pages has been utilised,the paragraphs are very much crowded, and the type.generally is very small. On this account the classification ofthe various compounds does not appear to be as distinct aswould have been the case had the volumes been larger andthe printed matter less congested. The preparation of thework from the point of view of the printer must have entailed.enormous labour and care with proof-sheets. The work, of

course, is a standard one, considering the very high positionwhich the author holds as one of the best exponents of the,;< organic" side of chemical science.

JOURNALS.

The Veterinarian for July is an improvement on its pre-decessor of the previous month, although original articlesfrom English practitioners are still wanting. Summariesare given from colonial reports upon Actinomycosis andTuberculosis in New Zealand Cattle, the original work havingbeen done by, or under the supervision of, Mr. J. A. Gilruth,M.R.C.V.S. There is an interesting extract from an Americanjournal upon the subject of Oophorectomy of the Mare, theoperation being done per vaginam, the way now almostuniversally practised. The Glasgow Tramways and OmnibusCompany have recently carried out some valuable investiga-tions into the use of mallein as a curative agent in cases ofglanders and their conclusions are given in full. Under

the "Month’s Progress" there are a number of scientific

extracts, those beaiing upon the latest researches into rabiesraising great hope that a rapid method of forming anearly and certain diagnosis after the death of the sus-

pected animal can be made. According to work done by M.Nocard of Alfort and also by Oui11&eacute; and Vallee of Toulousethe results of the researches of van Gehuchten and Nelismust not at present be absolutely accepted, and whateveropinion is given from a microscopical examination the dutyof the veterinary expert is to advise the person bitten to pro-ceed at once to the Pasteur Institute.

THE SANITARY INSPECTORS’ ASSOCIATION.-Theannual meeting of the western branch of this associationheld its annual meeting at Dartmouth on July 7th. The mayorread a paper on the Disposal of House Refuse and the medicalofficer of health (Mr. J. H. Harris), in the course of aninteresting address upon the position of sanitary inspectorssaid that such inspectors should be officials of the LocalGovernment Board, appointed and salaried by that bodyinstead of the local authority, so that they could be

thoroughly independent. The mayor afterwards entertainedthe members at dinner.

HOUSING AND IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION.-Aconference was held recently in Hulme "to consider the

housing question as affected by the past clearance of low-rented houses and the threatened closing by the SanitaryCommittee of the Manchester Corporation of many more,because of their alleged unfitness for human habitation." Itwas attended by many representative people. Resolutionswere passed appreciating the action of the City Council indeclining to sanction the further closing of houses in Hulmetill provision has been made for those displaced, and yetassuring the Sanitary Committee of its support if they willonly build as they pull down. The landlord of some of thecondemned property brought forward a very familiar argu-ment that there had been no infectious disease in thatproperty for 20 years, and said that " there was too much ofthis pulling houses down." Such statements are always madewhere the death-rate is highest. The conference was con-stituted a permanent Housing and Improvement Association,and may, it is hoped, do useful work.

New InventionsNEW TRACHEOTOMY INSTRUMENTS.

THE dilating director A is inserted by the side of the knifebefore the latter is withdrawn from the trachea ; on turningit transversely it both dilates the wound and serves as adirector for the tube. The pilot B is original only in itsprobe point. The outer tube c is shaped like Parker’s buthas larger wings. The tape holders D are hooked on to thebars of the shield before use; they prevent the tube frombeing coughed out but allow it free movement. The cleaner

E, of stiff plumed feather, is guarded by two little ebonitebars united by rubber rings and adjusted to the length ofthe tube. It is easily sterilised and cannot reach the

trachea. Where an inner tube is necessary the pattern F isused. Like Durham’s it is self-retaining without key. The

single handle is placed in the position of greatest mechanicaladvantage and taken well out of the way. As there is roomfor a finger on either wing of the outer tube the latter canand should be fixed during the removal of the inner and isthen not jogged about in the trachea, nor can it be pulledthrough the shield. There is nothing about the orifice of thetube or within it likely to catch dirt, every part is readilytaken to pieces for cleaning, and the tapes being insertedwithout any disturbance of the shield are not introduceduntil all is clean. Messrs. Arnold and Son are the makers.

G. C. GARRATT, M.B. Cantab.,Assistant Resident Medical Officer at the London Fever Hospital.

AT the meeting of the general committee ofthe French Hospital, London, on July 12th, Dr. GeorgeOgilvie was unanimously elected physician to the hospital.The committee cordially expressed their appreciation of hisservices during the past year when acting for Dr. J. S. Keserduring his absence abroad.

SOCIETY FOR RELIEF OF WIDOWS AND ORPHANSOF MEDICAL MEN.-A quarterly court of the directors ofthis society was held on Wednesday, July llth, the actingtreasurer, Dr. Potter, being in the chair. One new memberwas elected, the deaths of three members were reported, andthree persons had ceased to be members since April last.The death of a widow who bad received J;:35 a yearsince 1886 was announced. An application for grantsfor herself and seven children was read from a widow,and grants at the rate of .6100 a year were made.The husband, who met with a fatal accident in Australia,had only been elected a member in 1891 and had paid18 guineas in subscriptions. A sum of .E1197 was votedfor distribution among 48 widows, 14 orphans, and six re-cipients from the Copeland Fund. The expenses of thequarter were M4 12. A vote of " God-speed " was passed toDr. W. S. Church, one of the treasurers of the society, on hisappointment on the commission of inquiry into the workingof the hospitals in South Africa.