we have not the slightest inclination to meddle; but the volumes before us give evidence that their author was a learned, critical, and painstaking student in his chosen branch of professional inquiry.
Fasting Girls: Their Physiology and Pathology. By William A. Hammond, M. D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 74. Price, 75 cents.
Dr. Hammond has done excellent service in contributing this little monograph to expose a class of the grossest frauds that grow rank in the soil of popular ignorance. He has not a very high opinion of our boasted enlightenment, as we gather from the following observations: "It seems that no proposition that can be made is so absurd or impossible but that many people, ordinarily regarded as intelligent, will be found to accept it and to aid in its propagation. And hence, when it is asserted that a young lady has lived for fourteen years without food of any kind, hundreds and thousands of persons throughout the length and breadth of a civilized land at once yield their belief to the monstrous declaration." Dr. Hammond gives accounts of several cases of alleged fasting girls and ingenious deceptions, the collusions and credulities of surrounding parties, and the manner of ultimate exposure. The final chapter, on the physiology and pathology of inanition, is very instructive.
Principles of Political Economy. By William Roscher, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Leipsic, Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, Privy Councilor to his Majesty the King of Saxony. From the thirteenth (1877) German edition, with additional chapters furnished by the author, for this first English and American edition, on Paper Money, International Trade, and the Protective System; and a Preliminary Essay on the Historical Method in Political Economy (from the French), by L. Wolowski. The whole translated by John J. Lalor, A. M. 2 vols. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 929. Price, $7.
The students of economic literature owe hearty thanks to Mr. Lalor for rendering into English the learned work of Professor Roscher on political economy. It is a book of inexhaustible erudition, such as a plodding and untiring German Professor alone could produce. It abounds in curious information on a wide range of collateral topics, and runs freely into social philosophy as well as into strict economics. The note's are copious, varied, and invaluable.
Index Medicus. Monthly Classified Record of the Current Medical Literature of the World. Edited by Dr. J. S. Billings, Surgeon U. S. Army, and Dr. R. Fletcher, M. R. C. S., Eng. Monthly. New York: Leypoldt. $3 per annum.
The "Index Medicus" is a publication which can hardly fail to be heartily welcomed by the medical profession. It records the titles of all new books on medicine, surgery, and the collateral branches. These are classed under subject-headings, and are followed by the titles of valuable original articles in the medical journals, and the transactions of medical societies. The periodicals thus indexed comprise pretty nearly all the current medical journals and transactions of value. At the close of each yearly volume a double index of authors and subjects will be added, forming a complete bibliography of medicine during the preceding year. The "Index Medicus" contains about fifty pages of large quarto size, clearly printed on good paper. The valuable character of the work and its remarkably low price must commend it to the patronage of physicians.
The Teacher. Hints on School Management. By J. R. Blakiston, M. A., one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 91. Price, $1.
We take it that this will prove a very helpful little work, on general schoolroom tactics, to that small circle of teachers who feel that they have any need of it, it being the business of teachers to know—and their standing, and salary, and influence in school and out of it depending upon their reputation for knowing, they can not generally afford to let it be suspected that they do not understand all about it—whatever it is. This book, by an old English school inspector, who says that his views "are the result of a personal experience of twenty-five years spent in educational work by one who feels
