Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/144

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
134
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ticularly remarkable for the number and variety of machines for generating electricity and for the appliances used in electric lighting, and these two subjects are treated in considerable detail. In some cases a slight history of antecedent inventions is prefixed to the description of objects exhibited, to show more clearly the progress and improvement made.

The Fallacies in "Progress and Poverty," etc. By William Hanson. New York: Fowler & Wells Company. Pp. 191. Price, $1.

Besides taking issue with Mr. George on some of the points in "Progress and Poverty" and "Social Problems," the author criticises Henry Dunning Macleod's "Economics" and adds chapters of his own on the "Ethics of Protection and Free Trade" and the "Industrial Problem considered a priori." Mr. Hanson is as radical as Mr. George, but differs from him in particular features of his views, especially as they bear on "the Law of Rent" and "Interest"; that is, Mr. George is too conservative for him. He appears to suggest a solution of all difficulties in the acceptance of Christian principles as he interprets them.

Cholera, and its Preventive and Curative Treatment. By D. N. Ray. New York: A. L. Chatterton Publishing Company. Pp. 128.

The author of this treatise is a native, high-caste Indian, of English and American education, and is connected with the Dispensary of the Homœopathic Medical College in this city. He began to collect the material for his work in his native land, where he had the disease under constant observation. In his essay, in which he aims to group all the facts known respecting cholera, he considers the history of the disease, its etiology, modes of propagation, predisposing circumstances, the exciting causes, symptoms, complications, and sequelæ, and other accompanying features, the method of treatment, and the diet of the patient. Eight theories that have been brought forward to account for the origin of cholera are reviewed in the chapter on diagnosis. The treatment recommended is according to homœopathic principles.

On a New Method of recording the Motions of the Soft Palate. By Harrison Allen, M. D, Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 34.

A new apparatus and its application are described in this volume, by which great delicacy is secured in transcribing the different motions, some of them extremely minute, of which the soft palate is susceptible. By it are recorded the changes that take place in the acts of swallowing, exhaling, coughing, hawking, sniffling, etc., and in articulation, even to the differences between the long and short sounds of the vowels. Dr. Allen suggests that his apparatus may have even a wider range of application than is delineated here, and that it may be made available for the comparative study of language, for the instruction of the deaf, and for the formation of a system of short-hand writing.

The Formation of Poisons by Micro-organisms. A Biological Study of the Germ Theory of Disease. By G. V. Black, M. D., D. D. S. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 178. Price, $1.50.

This volume contains a series of lectures which were delivered before the students of the Chicago College of Dental Surgery, and is divided into two parts. The first part embodies a review of the history and growth of the germ theory of disease, and is subsidiary to the second part, which is given, the author says, because he had "something to say that I thought ought to be said at the present time." The purpose of this "something to say" is to suggest a theory of the manner in which the germs act in producing disease. It is that, through the power which the bacteria possess in the remoleculization of matter, they cause the formation and diffusion through the system of organic alkalies having poisonous qualities comparable with those of strychnine.

The Orchids of New England: A Popular Monograph. By Henry Baldwin. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 158, with Plates.

The variety and strange beauty of the tropical orchids, so much sought for for greenhouses, give to the family a rare popular interest; and the effort to make our people acquainted with the other members of