racy, is more than supplemented by its uniformity and comprehension.

Dr. Woodworth is entitled to great credit for the efficient manner in which he has administered the affairs of his Department, of which, perhaps, one of the best criteria is the lack of appreciation manifested in Congress. It does n't pay.

H.

CROUP IN ITS RELATIONS TO TRACHEOTOMY. By J. Solis Cohen, M.D., Lecturer on Laryngoscopy and Diseases of the Throat and Chest, in Jefferson Medical College. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston. 1874.

The above is a typical example of a most valuable class of works for which general practitioners can never be too grateful to authors, who in these records of their own labors and observations, collated with those of others, thoroughly exhaust the subject, and present its merit in a condensed form to their readers, who are thereby saved days and nights of, oftentimes, fruitless toil in the search after "the grain of wheat in the bushel of chaff."

Dr. Cohen's conclusions concerning the use of tracheotomy in croup are summarized thus:

1. That there are no insuperable contra-indications to tracheotomy in croup;

2. That the administration of an anesthetic for the purpose of controlling the child's movements is admissible in performing the operation; but that it should be used with great caution;

3. That a careful dissection should be made down to the windpipe, and hæmorrhage be arrested before incising it, whenever there is at all time to do so;

4. That the incision should be made into the trachea as near the cricoid cartilage as possible, to avoid excessive hæmorrhage, and subsequent accidents which might occasion emphysema;

5. That a dilator should be used, or a piece of the trachea be excised, whenever any difficulty is encountered in introducing the tube;

6. That the tube should be dispensed with as soon as possible; or altogether, if the case will admit of it;

7. That assiduous attention should be bestowed upon the after treatment, especially that of the wound; and that a skilled attendant should be within a moment's call for the first twenty-four or forty-eight hours immediately following the operation."

The justice of one of the author's initial propositions cannot fail to be appreciated by every conservative mind, i.e. "Tracheotomy, in itself, does not cure croup. It affords a possibility of recovery by postponing, or insures it by averting, death. The course of the disease is continued until all its attendant phenomena have undergone evolution. The surgeon's knife merely cuts a path for the air to reach the bronchi in quantity sufficient to meet the requirements of the respiratory process, and saves the muscular force exhausted in futile efforts at respiration through the glottis.'

Dr. Cohen's little book will become one of the classics. No one who has ever seen a case of croup will fail to derive both pleasure and profit in reading it, and no one who ever expects to see a case can afford to deprive himself of the knowledge which he will thereby acquire.

THE BREATH, AND THE DISEASES WHICH GIVE IT A FETID Odor: with Directions for Treatment. By Joseph W. Howe, M.D., author of "Emergencies," Clinical Professor of Surgery, in the Medical Department of the University of New York; Visiting Surgeon to Charity Hospital; Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, etc. New York: D. Appleton & Company. 1875.

It is somewhat remarkable that the subject of fetid breath, which occasions so much annoyance and even mental suffering to its victims, and disgust to all who come within the range of its influence, should have attracted so little attention from authors and investigators. Hence, a thoroughly scientific exposition of the whole subject, such as Dr. Howe has given us, has long been a desideratum.

The contents of the little volume before us comprise "the physiology of repair, decay and respiration, fetid odors from emotion, from dyspepsia, from bad teeth and ulcers of the mouth, from catarrhal disorders, and from mineral poisons; the whole contained in a little volume of one hundred pages, which well deserve the attention of physicians, to whom we commend it most highly.

H.

THE DISEASES OF THE STOMACH; Being the third edition of the "Diagnosis and Treatment of the Varieties of Dyspepsia." Revised and Enlarged by Wilson Fox, M.D., FR.C.P., FR.S., Physician Extraordinary to Her Majesty the Queen; Fellow of University College; Corresponding Member of the Psyikalisch-Medicinisch-Gesellschaft of Wurzburg; Holme Professor of Clinical Medicine, University College, London; Physician to University College Hospital. With illustrations. Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea. 1875.

An excellent monograph concerning a class of diseases from which few of us frail mortals are exempt at some time or other in our lives, is presented in the abovenamed treatise. The author wisely takes for his point of departure, the proposition that pathological conditions are only disturbances of physiological order, and that no new factors are introduced.

Proceeding from such a basis, it is scarcely possible to wander far from the truth,-within the limits of what is clearly defined in physiology. The book consists of two divisions, of which the first comprises the symptomatology of the stomach, including the various appearances of the tongue, derangements of the appetite, thirst, flatulence, acidity and pyrosis, pain, vomiting, indigestion. Of these, the last four subjects are discussed admirably, and the chapters assigned to them are especially worthy of study, as clear and succinct statements of the true pathology of the morbid conditions which express themselves by these symptoms, as deduced from the most recent physiological data.

The student and general practitioner who is not perfectly sure of his physiology cannot devote a few hours to a better purpose than by a careful, thoughtful study of the subject as formulated by this author in these few chapters.

The second division of the book, comprising the special pathology of the stomach, comprehends the subjects, atomic dyspepsia, nervous, acute and chronic catarrh, ulcer, cancer, hæmorrhage, hypertrophy, stricture of the cardiac orifice, obstruction of the pylorus, dilatation, softening, perforation, rupture, tubercle. All of which subjects are discussed in a manner which cannot fail to be both agreeable and instructive to the reader. The subject of the neuroses of the stomach, receives much more attention than is usually assigned to it by systematic writers, a degree of attention which it well deserves, and, indeed imperatively demands, in view of the very indefinite ideas which are entertained just now by so many physicians, of the correlation of nervous functions, and those-so-called, more especially-of organic life. The therapeusis here taught is rational, and as free from the spirit of empiricism as can reasonably be expected, when the crude state of therapeutics is considered.

Amidst all its excellencies, the book is not altogether free from defects, although they are for the most part trivial; it is to be regretted, however, that the author, or his proof reader, should have sacrificed his diphthongs on the altar of the demon of willful ignorance, and thereby contributed to the progress of phonetic corruption which the English language is doomed, like all of its predecessors, to suffer. Hemorrhage has no meaning, unless one which is purely arbitrary, for it has no derivation, no philological relations; and the same may be said of Etiology. These are minor defects, but they nevertheless detract from the general excellence of the book, and from the scholastic merit of the author.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE MEDICAL AND SURGICAL USES OF ELECTRICITY, including Localized and General Faradization, Localized and Central Galvanization, Electrolysis and Galvano-Cautery. By George M. Beard, A.M., M.D., Member of the New York Society of Neurology and Electrology, etc., etc.; and A. D. Rockwell, A.M., M.D., member of the New York Society of Neurology and Electrology, etc., etc. Second Edition, revised, enlarged and mostly re-written, with nearly two hundred illustrations. New York: William Wood & Co. 1875.

DENTAL PATHOLOGY AND SURGERY. By S. James Salter, M.B., F.R.S., member of the Royal College of Surgeons, etc., etc. New York: William Wood & Co. 1875.

ON THE TREATMENT OF PLEURISY; with an appendix of cases, Showing the Value of Combination of Croton Oil, Ether and Iodine, as Counter Irritants in other Diseases. By Jno. W. Carson, M.D., late Physician to the class of Diseases of the Chest, in the N. Y. and Eastern Dispensaries, etc. N. Y.: W. Wood & Co. 1874.

COMPENDIUM OF CHILDREN'S DISEASES: a Handbook for Practitioners and Students. By Dr. Johann Steiner, Professor of the Diseases of Children in the University of Prague, and Physician to the Francis-Joseph Hospital for Sick Children.

Translated from the Second German Edition by Lawson Tait, F.R.C.S., Surgeon to the Birmingham Hospital for Women, Consulting Surgeon to the West Bromwich Hospital, Lecturer on Physiology at the Midland Institute. New York: D. Appleton & Company. 1875.

PHYSICIAN'S OFFICE CASE RECORD BOOK. 1875. Case Record Company, 224 Laurel st., Cincinnati, Ohio.

PHYSICIAN'S POCKET CASE RECORD BOOK. 1875. Case Record' Company, 224 Laurel St., Cincinnati, O.

PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

OZONE, THE ACTIVE OR ELECTRO-NEGATIVE OXYGEN, its Curative Virtues in Therapeutics. By Dr. Theo. A. Hoffmann. Beardstown, Ill. 1875.

SELLERS ET AL. vs. THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY ET Complainants' Affidavits on Motion for Injunction to restrain Erection of Slaughter House. In the Court of Common Pleas, of Philadelphia County. In Equity. Dec. Term, 1874. No. 3.