The Summer and its Diseases. By James C. Wilson, M. D. V. The VIII. The Eyesight, and how to care for It. By George C. Harlan, M. D. VI. X. D., D. D. S. IX. Our The Skin in Health and Brain Work and Overwork. CHART OF THE MORE IMPORTANT SKIN DISEASES. By T. S. Hoyne, M. D. Chicago. The tabular arrangement is particularly adapted to conveying information with regard to skin diseases, and this chart will be found very convenient for that purpose, arranging it under the headings of class, diseases, parts of body, diagnostic features, causation, treatment, concomitants. We would suggest to Dr. Hoyne that when he gets out another edition, he put it into octavo book form. This can be done very easily by dividing the tables and letting them run across two pages. The present size, 15 x 27 inches, is too unwieldy for comfortable use. ELECTRICITY AS RELATED TO MEDICINE AND SURGERY. By Dr. A. D. Rockwell. New York: Wm. Wood & Co. $1.00. This little book of one hundred pages will answer very nicely as a text-book for those who have not time to spend over the larger and more exhaustive treatises. It gives a clear and concise view of the whole subject, and is plentifully illustrated. THE TRUE RELATION OF THE SEXES. By the late John Ware, M. D. Boston: A. Williams & Co. 25 cents. Our older physicians do not need to be told what kind of a writer John Ware was, and our younger ones can get some idea from this little book, which, in most graceful English, treats in a masterly way of the delicate subject of the evils of masturbation and more open licentiousness. It is popularly written for young men, and can safely be recommended to them. ESSENTIALS OF DIET. By the late E. H. Ruddock, M. D. Second edition. With corrections and additions by E. B. Shuldam, M. D. London: The Homœopathic Publishing Co. 1879. Probably Dr. Ruddock's books have had a far greater circulation than those of any other homœopathic writer. He was acknowledged by all to be a very able man. While it could hardly be expected that all could agree on such a wide subject as diet, and while many might take exceptions to some points in this book, yet there is very much to interest and instruct in this very important subject, often, indeed, more important than medicine. We heartily commend its perusal. FRERICHS ON THE LIVER. Vol. III. New York: Wm. Wood & Co. 1879. The first two volumes of this work we have already favorably noticed. Volume III. is equally instructive. It is illustrated with thirty woodcuts and a full-page plate containing twenty figures. Among the subjects treated of are hydatids, simple cysts, cancer, diseases of the hepatic blood vessels and of the biliary passages, gall stones, etc. The whole work is a standard one, and very interesting. THE ART OF SINGING. By Prof. Ferdinand Lieber. Translated from the German by Dr. F. Seeger. New York: Wm. A. Pond & Co. Not being sufficiently well posted in the science of music to speak ex cathedra on the merits of this book, we inquired of our friend, Prof. E. B. Oliver, of this city, who is a most thorough musician in every sense of the word, and have his authority for saying that this book of Lieber's can be recommended as very reliable; particularly because Lieber believes in thoroughness, and abhors the sham superficiality which prompts many teachers to allow their pupils after a few cheap lessons to try to make a display of themselves in parlors or concertrooms. He pays special attention to the formation of the voice. Seeger has done the musical public a great service in translating this book. He has prefixed an interesting chapter on the Hygiene of the Voice. Dr. THE PIEDMONT AND MOUNTAIN REGIONS OF NORTHEAST GEORGIA. This is an interesting description by Dr. H. P. Gatchell, of Atlanta, of the climate, humidity, temperature, and agricultural resources of this pleasant and healthful country. Dr. Gatchell has also written for the GAZETTE and forwarded to us a valuable article on the Climatology of Consumption, which we expect to give to our readers at an early day. THE LAWS OF THERAPEUTICS. By Joseph Kidd, M. D., of London. Philadelphia Lindsay & Blakiston, 1879. $1.25. We shall notice this book in our next issue. PERSONAL. W. W. GLEASON, M. D., has removed from Malden to Provincetown. DRS. WM. P. WESSELHOEFT and J. B. BELL sailed for Europe, May 31. C. H. SARGENT, M. D., B. U. S. M., 1879, has located at North Grosvenordale, Conn. CLARA E. ALDRICH, M. D., same class, has located in Portsmouth, O. DR. HENRY C. ANGELL'S Diseases of the Eye has been translated into French by Dr. DeKeersmaecker. W. S. SEARLE, M. D., of Brooklyn, will be at at the Grand Union Hotel, Saratoga, during July and August. J. H. GALLINGER, M. D., of Concord, N. H., for some time president of the New Hampshire Homœopathic Medical Society, was chosen president of the New Hampshire Senate on its organization, June 3. C. E. STARK, M. D., of the class of '78, New York Homœopathic College, and who afterwards served one year as resident surgeon at the Ward's Island Homœopathic Hospital, has located at 30 Union Street, Norwich, Conn. J. K. WARREN, M. D., of Palmer, Mass., sailed for Europe, April 19, for the purpose of studying surgery, which he intends to make his specialty. Our readers will be pleased to learn that he has promised to write letters to the GAZETTE during his residence abroad. - At Fairfield, Conn., April 24, Jeremiah T. DeNISON, A. M., M. D., 73 May 21, of meningitis, Mamie, eldest daughter of DR. J. W. DOWLING, of New York City, II years, 6 months. The death is announced at Paris of the celebrated physician, Pierre Adolphe Piorry, who, after Laennec discovered the art of auscultation in disease, added the valuable means of diagnosis of mediate percussion. Piorry was born at Poitiers, Dec. 31, 1794, and began the study of medicine when he was sixteen years of age. He was conscripted, and went with the French army to Spain as a surgeon. He returned to Paris in 1814, received his degree as doctor in 1816, and attached himself to the school of Broussais. He afterwards followed the teachings of Magendie. He wrote many monographs and articles for medical journals, and, in 1833, began to gather materials for his treatise on the alterations of the blood. Laennec, who had published his researches on auscultation, in 1819, noticed Piorry in his service at La Charité and became interested in him. Soon afterwards Piorry conceived a new mode of percussion, which he called mediate percussion, practised by means of the pleximeter. He wrote a treatise on the subject, for which the Academy of Sciences awarded him, in 1828, the Montyon prize. His doctrines made him many adversaries. Piorry was made a member of the French Academy of Medicine in 1818, clinical professor at La Faculté in 1840, at La Charité in 1846, and at the Hôtel Dieu in 1864. He was created Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1838, and was promoted to be an officer in 1866. In addition to his medical writings he published a number of poems. BESIDES laxatives and enemas, the question of food disturbs the happiness of constipated persons. They cast about continually for something that will loosen, and their minds, stocked with imperfect knowledge of the nature of food, are disturbed by misty scraps on the physiology of digestion, and racked, day by day and week by week, by vain exertions to discover a pabulum which will insure the only true blissful state. This faulty selection of food often renders cases obstinate and permanent. Patients are controlled by superstitious notions on various points pertaining to their diet. Precisely as poultices are divided by people into "drawing" and "scattering," so also is food classified into "binding" and "loosening." As usual, the actual order of nature is reversed in the application of such notions. Thus, milk, water, broths, meats, together with light and digestible cereal preparations are "binding," while " coarse food," such as cracked wheat, figs, corn meal, oat meal, and fruit are considered by the popular verdict as "loosening." The truth is, that easily assimilable food, like milk, properly cooked farinaceous food, eggs, and properly roasted meats, including gruels, porridges, and soups, leave less residue when digested and tax the digestive apparatus very little. But articles of coarse food demand an extra exertion on the part of the constipated invalid to digest them. Much strength is thus consumed, the patient feels weaker after a coarse meal, and, worst of all, has a large accumulation of indigestible and undigested bran and fibrous matter to get rid of, which finally passes in the form of small, dry scybalæ. In young children and aged persons that kind of coarse food frequently causes dry accumulations in the rectum, which have to be removed by means of a spatula, spoonhandle, or the fingers. At other times, "coarse" food will produce a more advanced stage of intestinal irritation, and result at once in copious diarrhoea, which, at first hailed with joy, soon turns the mind to disappointment; for looseness of the bowels, whether produced by a cold, indigestible food, or laxative medicine, is almost invariably followed by a period of inactivity of the intestines, corresponding to the severity and duration of the looseness which preceded it. Without intending to exhaust all the possibilities leading to constipated habit, there is one more which deserves a passing notice, and that is overeating. Persons of ordinarily vigorous constitution and good digestive powers will be apt to be troubled with constipation when they take more food than they require; in those of more feeble powers, periodical attacks of diarrhoea are apt to be the result. Persons of constipated habit are often suprised to find that an abundance of fruit, like prunes, strawberries, or apples, does not accelerate the activity of the bowels. This is a matter of fact; its explanation is not easy, but may be said to arise from a want of susceptibility of the mucous surface on the one hand, and lessened peristaltic energy on the other, the diminution of strength being due to overtaxed energy by surplus of food. The treatment of these forms of constipation is a matter which involves much care and patience. To cast off such sufferers with the assurance that there is little the matter, and with the advice to use injections, coarse food, or some of the laxatives abundantly supplied by popular medicine-venders, is neither just to the patient nor to the physician. Troublesome as this class of patients may seem, the physician should remember that they are really suffering from a disturbance either of the nervous system, which deranges the functions of the digestive tract, or vice versa; in each case resulting in much actual discomfort. The management of such cases may be divided, first, into the hygienic and dietetic; second, medicinal. I am not aware that, in regard to hygiene and diet, any great difference can be made in |