chronic alcoholic neuritis, that of consecutive influenza, of beriberi, and the neuritis of leprosy. Under definite nerve areas, neuralgia is dealt with exhaustively and at length; also, rheumatic and gouty diatheses and the pains engendered thereby. Under Chapter VI, the diagnostic value of pain, as it deserves, receives that effective treatment so characteristic throughout the book of the author's predominant bent of mind.
Part II of the work takes up the special therapeutics of pain, and points to the importance of rest in the treatment of nervous symptoms engendered by prolonged and severe pain. Apart from the internal remedies directly or indirectly applicable in treating pain, the author proceeds to unfold his own methods in increasing the certainty and duration of several remedies and their action on the peripheral nerves, and goes on to expatiate upon the various surgical expedients not infrequently employed. The uses of compressed air in conjunction with remedies which tend to diminish the acuity of perception, including author's pain, come in for their quota of recorded observation, while prevention of relapse is noted fully and with precision. The closing pages supply some supplementary observations on torture and the infliction of pain as a judicial punishment during the middle ages in Europe.
Though cases that more properly belong to the domain of general surgery and medicine are not discussed by the author, the intricacy of the whole subject of pain is never lost sight of, and the vast array of pathological conditions treated assumes a character unquestionably of interest and high utility to the medical world.
A Student's Text-Book of Botany. By Sydney H. Vines. (First half.) New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 430. Price, $2.
This text-book has grown out of the author's labors in revising Prof. Prantl's Lehrbuch der Botanik, when the thought of extending the scope of that work was suggested. The extension went on till what is essentially a new and distinct work was produced. It deserves commendation for its thoroughness and the symmetry of its structure. The first part, now before us, is devoted to the exposition of morphology, a brief chapter on classification, and a description of the cryptogams. The province of morphology is defined to be "the study of the form of the body of plants, including the development of the body, the segmentation of the body into members, and the form and mutual relations of the members, as also the intimate structure (anatomy and histology of the body and its members in so far as structure throws light upon the morphology of any part of the body). It is an essentially comparative study." The two systems of classification—natural and artificial—having been distinguished, the natural system is defined as having for its object the classification of plants according to their fundamental relationships; and these being established once for all by Nature herself, it is not based on any arbitrary principle, but depends upon the state of our knowledge of these fundamental relationships. "These find their chief expression in the structure and other characteristics of the reproductive organs, as well as in the peculiarities of polymorphism presented by the life-history. This is more definitely true with regard to the definition of the larger groups of the vegetable kingdom; within these groups relationships may be exhibited sometimes in one way and sometimes in another, so that it is not possible to lay down any universal rules for determining close affinities. As the investigation of this subject is far from being complete, the natural system can not be regarded as being perfectly evolved; the various general sketches which have hitherto been given are therefore no more than approximations to the truth."
Man an Organic Community. By John H, King. London: Williams & Norgate. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Two vols. Pp. 327328. Price, $4.50.
We have here an effective work involving issues of prime import, as "an exposition of the law that the human personality in all its phases of evolution, both co-ordinate and discordinate, is the multiple of many subpersonalities." In each successive chapter the reader will discover clear conceptions fairly elaborated, and designed to prove the initial allegation which the author superadds to a law already recognized in the domain of science treated. By progressive
