that has little bearing on the topic under discussion.
The chapter on epidemics adds nothing whatever to our knowledge of their causes or prevention, says not a word concerning the measures requisite for their management when occurring on shipboard, and leaves us in doubt as to whether the author is even acquainted with the results of modern investigations on the subject. Had he been, we should scarcely expect to find such a paragraph as this on epidemic influences: "The cause and nature of this epidemic influence are quite unknown. The most ancient theory is as true as any. God so ordained it; has thus organized his creatures. Anciently, these diseases were mostly attributed to his wrath; and certainly they mostly result more or less directly from violations of his known laws. When we seek for the instruments of his will in this matter, we get into a labyrinth of guesses, and ingenious and plausible theories, in which hydro-carbons, fermentations, organic germs, microscopic animalcules, and cryptogamic vegetations are made prominently to figure. They nearly all refer to impurities or distemperatures of the atmosphere."
After this, we are not surprised to find the following statement concerning the spread of yellow fever: "In regard to the question of quarantine in this disease, we may safely say that all restraints that prevent the sick from reaching a healthy locality are absurd, and, with our present knowledge on the subject, outrageously cruel—little better than deliberate murder. A yellow-fever patient, even carrying his clothing and bedding with him, has never been known to communicate the disease to another person in a healthy locality, and the experiment has been tried thousands of times."
Chapters XXIV. to XXVIII. inclusive are devoted to certain endemic diseases, among which scorbutus and typhus are the only ones particularly liable to occur on shipboard, and even in the case of these there is a conspicuous absence of specific directions for their prevention. Why such diseases as plica polonica, goitre, elephantiasis, cholera infantum, milk-sickness, and puerperal fever should be discussed in a work on naval hygiene, we fail to understand; and for the addition of an appendix, devoted exclusively to the subject of weights and measures, there seems no other explanation than a desire to fill up the book. Indeed, from beginning to end, the idea is forced upon us that bulk rather than quality has been the principal object.
As before remarked, there are scattered through the pages of the book many good suggestions, that might be made of use had readers the time and patience to hunt them out; all, however, so far as we have observed, may be found in other works on hygiene, and in a far more accessible and less costly shape.
The Silk Goods of America: A Brief Account of the Recent Improvements and Advances of Silk Manufacture in the United States. By William C. Wykoff. Published under the Auspices of the Silk Association of America. New York: D. Van Nostrand. 1879. Pp. 120. Price, $1.50.
The author of this work claims that American silk goods are better as well as cheaper than foreign, and that it is time their actual merits were laid before the public. Every wearer of silk goods, or consumer of sewing-silk and twist, will be interested in the information conveyed in the various chapters upon raw silk; upon sewings and twist; upon weaving; upon black dress-goods; various piece-goods; spun silk; handkerchiefs and ribbons; trimming and passementerie; silk laces; dyeing, etc.
From the profusion of interesting information with which the pages of this volume are crowded, we extract quite at random the following. The lengthier statements and explanations are, perhaps, more instructive than the brevities we have chosen.
We are told that the manufacturer wants reeled silk and not cocoons. Its value depends upon the way it is reeled, which is best done at a filature, where cheap skilled labor can be obtained. There are no filatures in this country. Our raw silk comes from abroad—about twenty-four per cent, from Europe and the rest from Asia. The Japanese now have filatures, and send us silk equal to the best from Europe. The coarse, inferior silks are kept at home, and America gets the best and finest. Raw silk is costly and of small bulk, so that its freight
