American Nervousness, its Causes and Consequences. A Supplement to Nervous Exhaustion (Neurasthenia). By George M. Beard, A. M., M. D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 352. Price, $1.50.
The author believes that nervousness—"strictly, deficiency or lack of nerve-force"—is a modern affection, and that it is manifested in the United States through a variety of symptoms that are peculiar in many respects to the country, and remarkable. He ascribes its great development and rapid increase chiefly and primarily to modern civilization, which is different from the ancient civilization by a number of characteristics which breed mental activity and anxiety about time-tables, and excitements about matters of politics and business, for which the ancients had only a limited concern. It is aided by secondary and tertiary causes which might be comparatively unimportant in themselves alone, but which, combined with each other and with the chief cause, exert each its own kind and degree of effect. The symptoms by which this nervousness is manifested, numerous as they are, and unpleasantly as they often exhibit themselves, do not all betoken ill to the country; for brain-workers have in all ages been long lived, longevity increases apace with nervousness; good taste, the beauty of women, the faculty of humor, the eloquence of oratory, increase with it; the evil of it tends, within certain limits, to correct itself; "and the physical future of the American people," says the author, "has a bright as well as a dark side; increasing wealth will bring increasing calm and repose; the friction of nervousness shall be diminished by various inventions; social customs shall be modified, and as a consequence strength and vigor shall be developed at the same time with, and by the side of, debility and nervousness."
The Library. By Andrew Lang. With a Chapter on Modern English Illustrated Books, by Austin Dobson. London: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 184. Price, $1.25.
The purpose of this work is explained in its own pages thus: "There are, in every period of taste, books which, apart from their literary value, all collectors admit to possess, if not for themselves, then for others of the brotherhood, a peculiar preciousness. These books are esteemed for curiosity, for beauty of type, paper, binding, and illustrations, for some connection they may have with famous people of the past, or for their rarity. It is about these books, the method of preserving them, their enemies, the places in which to hunt for them, that the following pages are to treat."
The Microscope and its Relation to Medicine and Pharmacy. Edited and published by Charles H. Stowell, M. D., Assistant Professor of Physiology and Histology, University of Michigan, and Louisa Reed Stowell, M. S., Assistant in Microscopical Botany, University of Michigan. An Illustrated Bimonthly Journal, Vol. I, No. 1. Ann Arbor, Michigan. Detroit: George S. Davis. Pp. 32. Price, $1 per year.
While, in other medical journals that give attention to microscopy, microscopic topics are made secondary to medical ones, the conductors of this journal intend to give the most prominence to those subjects especially related to the microscope. The present number contains four original articles in the special department of the magazine, and presents matters of general interest to physicians and pharmacists, under the heading of "Editorial Abstracts."
Principal Characters of American Jurassic Dinosaurs. By Professor O. C. Marsh. Pp. 7, with Seven Plates.
The discovery of a nearly complete skeleton of Brontosaurus has added many new points to our knowledge of the group of Dinosauria, some of which are given in the present paper. A second species, equally gigantic in size, has since been found, and two new genera from the same formation, all of which are noticed, and an outline of classification of the group is proposed.
Information for Emigrants. The Climate, Soils, Timbers, etc, of Kentucky, contrasted with those of the Northwest. By John R. Procter. Frankfort, Kentucky: Kentucky Geological Survey and Bureau of Immigration. Pp. 29.
The Bureau of Immigration has already issued several publications setting forth the resources of Kentucky. Persons interested in the settlement of the North west have pub-
