Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 23.djvu/432

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
418
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

us, and briefly to outline the course of its argument; but our sketch gives no adequate idea of the number and importance of the specific topics that are treated in the course of the exposition. Many of the larger and more urgent questions of the time are taken up, and, while considered in relation to the fundamental principle which it is the object of the work to develop, they are handled in a way that is full of suggestiveness and valuable instruction.

Our Home Physician: A Popular Guide to the Art of preserving Health and treating disease. By George M. Beard, M. D., assisted by Eminent Medical Authorities. New York: E. B. Treat. Pp. 1,506, with Plates. Price, $6.

This work is designed to present, in a form intelligible to ordinary readers, a review of the whole field of medical science, so far as it is of practical application and popular acquaintance with it is desirable. It includes within its scope anatomy, physiology, hygiene, and the employment of simple treatment and remedies. It gives information concerning the structure of the human body and the functions of its organs; on diet, stimulants, narcotics, air, sunlight, exercise, and bathing; on the care of the sick-room, the management of infants and children; on the general laws and history of disease; and on the treatment of accidents and emergencies, with descriptions of familiar remedies, for all persons and every household; together with suggestions concerning the special care and treatment of obscure and grave diseases and the application of powerful remedies, for persons who, like planters, miners, sailors, travelers, and dwellers in remote districts, are beyond the reach of skillful medical aid, and must be either treated by themselves or by their friends, or left to suffer. The great advance that has been made in the science of medicine during the last quarter of a century is duly recognized; and prominence is given to the view that the types, phases, and names of diseases have wonderfully changed during that period, and that a greater revolution has been wrought in the method of treatment and the selection of remedies. Hence, physicians are more successful in the treatment of disease now than formerally; and the fact is enforced that a large number of maladies formerly regarded as incurable have been found susceptible of relief and cure, and that the accession of a considerable proportion of diseases may be prevented by timely and suitable precautions. On the subject of medical schools and systems, the broad principle is assumed that "the wise physician of our time uses for his patients all things that have been proved to be beneficial." The author has been aided by authorities and physicians of recognized standing in the preparation of the several departments of his work. His aim has been, in his own words, "to prepare a comprehensive, popular treatise, . . . that shall say just enough to instruct and not so much as to bewilder; that shall fairly represent the various departments in language both clear and attractive, as well as accurate and instructive; that shall make broad and plain the boundaries between those subjects which the people can and should know and those which they should not attempt to know; and that shall treat all this large variety of themes in such a manner as not to offend the taste of the best-ordered household." The work is illustrated by fifteen chromolithographic plates and numerous woodcuts.

The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-'72. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. Vol. I, pp. 368; Vol. II, pp. 383. Price, $4.

This work, edited by Charles Elliot Norton, is one of remarkable interest, and is unique in literature. It covers a period of thirty-eight years in the intellectual life of two gifted and remarkable men belonging to different nationalities, and who were early drawn together by a sympathy of ideas and a mutual appreciation of genius before either had conquered a position in the world of public letters. The work has all the interest of personality, and is a sort of compound autobiography or revelation of the inside life of the distinguished men whose intimate and prolonged correspondence makes up the volumes. The characters of Carlyle and Emerson were, of course, both formed before they came into this relation of close correspondence; but the epistolary record covers the period of their mental development, and brings it to the maturity of advanced age, when it ceased, through the decline of liter-