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Reviews and Notices of Books.On Diseases of the Stomach: the varieties of Dyspepsia-their

)iHo;.’i.s’ cwd 7’?-ca/;’’n. By S. 0. HABERSHox, 1I.D.Lond., F.R.C.P.; Physician to Guy’s Hospital; Lectureron Materia Medica and Therapeutics at Guy’s, &c. Lon-don : Robert Hardwicke.

DR. HABERsHox is sufficiently well-known as a pathologicalobserver and writer on diseases of the abdomen to make

any detailed notice of his present work unnecessary. Ittreats exclusively of diseases of the stomach and the variousforms of dyspepsia. Dyspeptic diseases are, something likeskin diseases, very difficult of description and of differentia-tion. When we meet with a troublesome case of dyspepsiain practice and go to the books for light on it, it is apt tobe very difficult of identification with any of the merely literaryforms of the disease. But Dr. Habershon has succeeded in

giving a very useful description of most varieties of the

malady, and in practically distinguishing them one from

another. He does not trouble the reader with details from his

pathological materials, but his book is one that could havebeen written only by a physician who has seen a large amountof disease in the living, and carefully checked his conclusionsby making good use of large opportunities for post-mortem

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observation. The book opens with a chapter on Digestion atDifferent Periods of Life. Then follows one on the General

Sympathy of the Stomach. The third, fourth, and fifth

chapters treat generally of Symptomatology and Treatment ofDiseases of the Stomach ; and the successive chapters- downto the last, the eighteenth-discuss the particular forms ofDyspepsia and diseases. We think the classification of dys-pepsia as good as any we have yet seen-atonic dyspepsia,dyspepsia from congestion, inflammatory dyspepsia, hepaticdyspepsia, rheumatic and gouty dyspepsia, renal dyspepsia,sympathetic dyspepsia, &c. Degeneration of the stomach-atrophy, fatty wasting, lardaceous disease, fibroid degenera-tion, ulcer, cancer, &c.There is an occasional literary carelessness in the text which

would scarely be worth notice if it did not sometimes slightlyaffect the clearness with which the author’s meaning is con-veyed. But the work as a whole is a very excellent one. Itis all the better for being small. It should be read throughonce, and thereafter will be found a useful book admitting ofready reference in cases of stomach ailment or disease. It iswell based on sound and suggestive physiology, and on extensivepathological observation, and in the therapeutical departmentis simple, practical, and discriminating.

Change of Air, Change of Scene, and Disease. By J. C.ATKINSON, M.D. Fcap. Svo. Trubner and Co.

THE public are apt to confound the therapeutics of change ofair with those of change of scene, and even amongst medical menthere is often confusion of tongues when these two importantelements of cure are under consideration. There is, nevertheless,as wide a therapeutical difference between these two elementsof cure as there is a chemical difference between carbon and

oxygen in carbonic acid, and hydrogen and oxygen in water.We notice therefore with satisfaction an attempt by Dr. Atkin-son to show the value of the two very distinct remedial mea-

sures, change of air and change of scene. In a well-written

treatise, scientific yet plain, the author shows that change ofscene anywhere may be and usually is of service for that ail-ment of body which comes from overwork of mind, and whichone of our moderns calls "the disease atra cura /’ but thatchange of air has no general application in the treatment ofdisease, and that, ignorantly and injudiciously prescribed, itis as often pernicious as useful. Upon what, then, does thedecided influence of change of air, whether for good or for evil,

depend ? According to Dr. Atkinson, the influence is simplythat of atmospheric pressure. Reduction of atmospheric pres.sure, he urges, quickens the respiration and circulation, favourselimination, and so induces waste; hence the appetite andvigour of the healthy mountaineer. Increased pressure, onthe other hand, conserves the material of the body and checkswaste. Following this argument, he opposes altogether thetransference of consumptive wasting patients to elevated andso-called bracing localities, and insists that antagonistic actionis what is wanted to stay the rapid confluence of symptoms inthat fatal malady, and not pure air. The theory is bold, andperhaps not unworthy of consideration; it has many facts,however, opposed to it, and has not yet sufficient data in itsfavour to warrant our unqualified acceptance of it.

Historical Sketch of the Edinburgh Anatomical School. ByJohn STRUTHERS, M.D. Edin., Fellow of the Royal Collegeof Surgeons of Edinburgh ; Professor of Anatomy in theUniversity of Aberdeen ; late Lecturer on Anatomy, Edin-burgh. Maclachlan and Stewart.

’, DR. STRUTHEES has expanded into a thin octavo the lecturewhich he originally delivered before the Royal College of Sur-geons of Edinburgh on the history of the Anatomical Schoolin that city. Interesting in a professional aspect, it is highlyso in an antiquarian one, as enabling the young student torealise the difficulties under which the study of anatomy hasin former years been prosecuted, and also to estimate arighthis obligations to those teachers and men of science to whomhe owes the facilitated conditions under which he now pursueshis studies. The brief biographical sketches of the great Edin-burgh anatomists, from Alexander Monro the first to Dr.Robert Knox, are rendered by Dr. Struthers not only instruc.tive but entertaining ; while the valuable notes he has accu-mulated in his volume show him to have the true academical

mind, which, though fully and wisely in sympathy with thepresent, is also gratefully and reverentially appreciative ofthe past.

YELLOW FEVER AND SMALL-POX INTHE NAVY.

DR. MACKAY’s report on the Health of the Navy, which wenoticed last week, gives the particulars of severe outbreaks ofyellow fever on board vessels belonging to the West Africansquadron during the latter part of 1865, and of an epidemicof small-pox on board the Octavia, attached to the Cape ofGood Hope and East Indian squadron.Fever prevailed very extensively at Sierra Leone during the

Michaelmas quarter of 1865, and is said to have occasioned amortality among the European population of about 27 per cent.H.M. receiving-ship Isis, moored about 200 yards from thelanding-place at Free Town, with a mixed complement of

Europeans and Kroomen on board, also suffered much at thesame time from fever, chiefly of the remittent type, which wasfatal only to the ship’s steward, who died on the 28th Sep-tember with concluding symptoms of yellow fever. Thence-

forward almost every new arrival on board the his wasstricken with fever, which in most cases proved fatal, until inJanuary positive instructions were issued that no fresh arrivalsfrom England or supernumeraries of any kind were to be re.ceived on board, and all communication between the Isis andother vessels of the squadron was interdicted.Unfortunately too much mischief had been done ad interiot,

the fever poison having been transferred directly from the Isisto the ships Bristol and RCLttlesnake.The Bristol arrived on the station, and anchored at Cape

Sierra Leone on or about Christmas-day, 1865. It havingbeen considered probable that the continuance of fever on

board the Isis was due to that vessel’s proximity to the shore,it was determined to move her to another part of the harbour;

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and on December 28th, 4 officers and 112 men from the Bristolwere sent to move the Isis to what was hoped might prove amore healthy anchorage. The Bristol crew were employed onboard the Isis for two days, every precaution being taken, asthe work was very heavy, to protect them from the heat ofthe sun by sending them to and fro early in the morning andlate at night, and during the day their work was carried onunder the roofing of the hulk. On the 30th December theBristol left Sierra Leone for l4Tonroia, and on that day anofficer was placed on the sick-list with what proved to beyellow fever. He had landed on the 26th, remained on shorethe whole day exposed to the sun, bathed in the heat of theday, and having missed his passage off to the ship in the even-ing, went on board the Isis for the night. The attack in this

case was severe, but he ultimately recovered. By the 2nd ofJanuary the disease had become epidemic, all the cases beingclearly traceable to the Isis, as the men affected belonged,with one exception, to the working party sent on board thatship. The exception was a man who went on shore with aparty of petty officers on the 29th, and on returning wenton board the Isis for a short time, leaving his companions inthe boat: this man was the only one of the party who con-tracted the fever. On the 3rd of January, 32 persons havingbeen attacked, of whom one had died, the ship’s course wasc11anp"erl for Ascension where she arriv8rl on the 13th. 1W rina

the passage the healthy were separated from the sick, and,doubtless owing to the judicious measures adopted, and tothe free ventilation on board, the disease did not extend toany of the ship’s company who had not been exposed to infee-tion in the Isis. On the arrival of the Bristol at Ascension,21 of the worst cases were landed, and placed in quarantine intwo hospitals. Strict quarantine was maintained between theship and the shore, and in all probability it was owing to thestringency of these measures that the disease did not extend tothe garrison. Altogether there were 39 attacks and 22 deathsamong this ship’s company from yellow fever in little morethan a fortnight; and the epidemic was not only remarkablefor the great mortality it occasioned, but also from the factthat no one was attacked who had not been employed in orvisited the Isis. The crew of the Bristol had suffered heavilyfrom venereal disease while fitting out at Sheerness, so that

many of them were, no doubt, in a condition of more thanordinary receptivity of morbific influences.The Rattlesnake arrived at Sierra Leone on Nov. 22nd, and

held free communication with the Isis until, on the 27th, a boy,who had been in the habit of going backwards and forwards be-tween the two ships, was attacked with yellow fever, and died onthe fourth day. The infection being thus communicated to theRattlesnake, cases of fever, varying in severity, became fre-

quent on board ; altogether 22 cases occurred, resulting inieath to five persons, one of them being the assistant-surgeonwho had recently joined the ship, and had attended upon thesick with the utmost assiduity until he was struck down.Being a flag-ship, the commodore brought the h’attles7acke

home, and on entering the colder latitudes the fever entirelydisappeared. The facts of this outbreak leave no doubt what-ever that the disease was, as in the Bristol, brought on boardfrom the 7-s’M.The disease was introduced into the Arc7eer by a seaman who

had been left on shore at Loando, where it had been prevailingfor some time. The man was brought on board suffering fromfever on the 5th of October, and died on the 8th in his ham-mock, which had been placed in the steerage near the gun-room. During the course of the epidemic there were on board96 cases of fever (of which 56 were returned as yellow fever)and 19 deaths. Of these deaths 5 were officers, 4 of whomwere members of the gun-room near which the infected ham-mock was hung, and the marines who died were taken ill whileon duty as sentries in the steerage. "The disease, in fact,once introduced into the ship, progressed steadily, propagatedbv infection from the steerage as from a centre," and only sub-sided on the vessel proceeding to cold latitudes.These outbreaks prove to demonstration the absolute danger

of holding communication with localities or ships in which thisdeaclly malady prevails. Nothing but speedy removal of thestricken vessels to latitudes unfavourable to malarial develop-ment had any effect in subduing the virulence of the disease.The notion that by shifting anchorage to a more healthy

part of the harbour the fever on board the Isis might beabated, shows the state of uncertainty which exists aboutthe communicability of yellow fever. Dr. Mackay’s commentthereon is, "that there can be little question that the exist-ence of the fever poison in that vessel depended neither on thelocality nor on the water used in the ship, to which some re-ference was made by the medical officers, but to a specificpoison previously emanating from the bodies of yellow feverpatients on board."In the case of the Arclaer, which proceeded from Loando to

Ascension, an attempt was made, after the healthy crew andconvalescents had been removed on shore, to purify the vessel,the sick on board being removed to the bows, where they hadthe full benefit of the fresh breeze. But cases continued tooccur among the working party sent to cleanse the ship, andat length it was felt that the only plan was to embark all, andmake direct for England.

Dr. Mackay believes that the clearing out of holds and othermeasures "supposed to be of a sanitary nature" are at suchtimes of more than questionable utility, the men being harassedwith work while their minds are depressed with the knowledgethat a fatal epidemic is amongst them; and he asserts that anysuch clearing out could have no influence in checking the dis-ease, "which only ceases by perfect separation of the healthyfrom the infected, or by taking the vessel into a cold latitude."But it seems very important to be determined whether, sup-posing a vessel cannot get away to these cool latitudes, thereis no way, by disinfection, fumigation, and thorough cleansing,to exorcise the demon of pestilence.Under any circumstances, the physical character of the West

Coast of Africa, and the peculiar nature of the duties of thesquadron employed there, are so unhealthy, that we shouldrejoice if the suggestion of Mr. Childers for a reduction of theforce on that station could, without detriment to the nationalinterests, be carried into effect. Sir John Elphinstone, in aletter to The Times, says that no vessel ought to remain onthe station for more than twelve months at a time ; and thatthe system now adopted of stationing a small ill-ventilatedship there for three years is perfectly unjustifiable.

Small-pox broke out in the Octavic[ at sea, about 400 milesfrom Bombay, on the 19th of March, and by the 22nd, whenthe vessel arrived at Bombay, 102 confirmed or suspected caseswere under treatment. All the cases were landed, and placedin commodious buildings on a small barren island, and by the27th no fewer than 165 cases had been landed, 6 of them ter-minating fatally. After a prescribed period of quarantine theconvalescents were re-embarked on the 8th of May, and theepidemic was considered at an end. The disease was introducedon board the Octavia by a Krooman who had been under treat-ment for measles in the General Hospital at Bombay, where hehad been placed in a ward next to one in which there weretwo cases of small-pox. This man was discharged from thehospital to the Octavia cured, and apparently in good health,on the 1st of March. On the 5th he was attacked with symp-toms of small-pox, which assumed the confluent form, andproved fatal on the 14th. Three days afterwards a petty

officer was attacked, and the disease then spread rapidly.Previous to this enidemic. measles had annea,red among theOctavia’s company; and whilst she was ntting out at home,her sick-rate was very high from venereal disease, catarrh, andrheumatism.

These periodical outbreaks in the navy of a disease so essen-tially preventable as small-pox-in 1863 the crews of severalships on the home station were attacked-indicate the absenceof strict enforcement, or sufficient care in the practice, ofvaccination.

THE CHOLERA PRIZE OF £4000.—No less than 110works were sent this year to the Academy of Sciences of Parisfor competition. The report, as usual, is extremely interest-ing, and gives a good idea of the manner in which the cholerahas been studied. The full prize has not been awarded ; butrewards have been granted to Messrs. Legros and Goujon, fortheir experimental researches ; to M. Thiersch, for his ex-

periments on 104 mice with choleraic dejections ; to M.Baudrimont, for his atmospheric researches bearing uponcholera; to M. Worms, for his essay on prophylactic measures;and to Dr. Lindsay, of Edinburgh, for his experiments on thetransmission of cholera by the clothes.