made this effort, and Dr. Piffard has aided in making its results known to his countrymen. The descriptions given are clear, the treatment simple, and generally positive, and the translation is well rendered. M. Hardy recognizes the influence of moral causes, such as grief, mental excitement, and loss of sleep, in producing skin diseases. We know a gentleman who contracted a severe eczematous affection through depressing mental emotions, and in whom the disease reappeared several times from like causes. Dr. Siegle's contributions to laryngology have been extensive. The little work1 now translated is concise, and at the same time by no means superficial, and the new inhaling apparatus invented by the author is certainly preferable to any other at present employed. Among the many works now appearing upon diseases of the throat, this will occupy a prominent position. M. Bouchardat, among his other onerous duties, finds time every year to prepare and issue an abstract of such discoveries and applications in therapeutics as appear to him of importance. The present volume2 is the first of the series which has been translated into English. As a synopsis of what has been done in France during the last year in the science of remedies, this little volume is well enough, but as far as the progress of therapeutics in the rest of the world is concerned, it is simply nothing. Like most other Frenchmen, M. Bouchardat either Hardy, M.D., etc. 94. Translated by Henry G. Piffard, M.D., etc. 12mo., pp. New York: Moorhead, Simpson & Bond. 1868. 1 The Treatment of Diseases of the Throat and Lungs by Inhalations, with a new Inhaling apparatus. By Emil Siegle, M.D. Translated from the Second German edition by S. Nickles, M.D. Cincinnati: R. W. Carrol & Co. 1868. 12mo., pp. 136. 2 Annual Abstract of Therapeutics, Materia Medica, Pharmacy, and Toxicology, for 1867; followed by an Original Memoir on Gout, Gravel, and Urinary Calculi. By A. Bouchardat, Prof. etc. Translated and Edited by M. J. de Rosset, M.D., etc. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston. 1868. 12mo., pp. 314. ignores those people who are so unfortunate as to live outside of Gaul, or else he is ignorant of what they do. Of all the articles in the book, not twelve are taken from foreign journals, and most of these are quoted at second hand. M. Bouchardat certainly has not access to either English, German, or American medical periodicals. As instances of the roundabout way in which he gets intelligence from them, we may state that a paper by Dr. Smith, upon the action of iron on the teeth, which appeared some time since in the Edinburgh Med ical and Surgical Journal, is quoted from the Giornale di Scienzi Mediche; and Dr. Bigelow's paper on Rhigolene, published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, is quoted from L'Union Medicale. We do not doubt that Dr. de Rosset could have prepared a much better abstract of Therapeutics than the one he has seen fit to translate and edit. Dr. Winslow's last book' will be read, not merely with. profit but with pleasure. It opens with a very happy setting forth of a great number of facts illustrative of the physiological and pathological effects of solar light. In Parts II and III, on the lunar ray, the opinions of many writers, ancient and modern, are presented to establish that the moon at certain phases does exert a deleterious influence upon the sick in general, and the insane in particular. Though strongly inclined to believe in such influence, Dr. W. does not commit himself. The most interesting portion of the work, is perhaps that on the Hygiene of Light. Here the author shows, what every observant physician must have noticed, that the free entrance of light into wards or sick rooms is essential to rapid recovery. The remarkable effect of sunlight in increasing the amount of pigment in the body, has led to the hypothesis that the spectroscopic particles of iron contained in the solar ray, enter the system through the skin. The repetition of the late Sir David 1 Light; Its Influence on Life and Health. By Forbes Winslow, M.D., D.C.L., Oxon. (Hon.) etc. New York: Moorhead, Simpson & Bond. 1868. 12mo., pp. 200. Brewster's hints for the lighting of dark rooms in cities, is not unnecessary. If they could be published in tract form for distribution, how much health and happiness might be cheaply procured for those whose vocation or poverty condemns them to dwell in places never visited by the "holy light." Among the thousand clerks in our city, how many strained eyes might be relieved and saved! How many wretched sewing girls might be exempted from anæmia and its consequences! The suggestion of Dr. W., that light should be let into the nursery, is very important, and should be heeded by all who have any regard for physiological laws, even by physicians. In many of our homes, the room in which the children are kept is in the basement, shut off from all direct rays. The obese debility, so common in infants, the tendency to low inflammation, to scrofulous and tuberculous accidents, might be almost completely remedied by having the nursery at the top of the house, or in any place where the sunlight could be let in in floods through sky-lights, and where the children might develop strong muscle and rich blood. For the beautiful and correct edition of this charming book, the American publishers deserve the thanks of the profession, and of the reading public generally. CHRONICLE. PYSHIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. New Method of Measuring the Volume of the Head. By Dr. Obernier, of Bonn. "In regard to the development of the head, there exists a direct connection between the brain and the cranium-a mechanical and an organic influence. The organic influence pertains to the brain alone, the mechanical to both the brain and the cranium. "All those agents which are capable of acting on the brain so as to facilitate its development, tend otherwise to develop the cranium. According to M. Broca the crania of the Parisian paupers taken from a cemetery were much smaller than the. crania of the rich inhabitants. Broca has also shown that the crania taken from a cemetery toward the close of the twelfth century, are less voluminous than those of the present population of Paris. There can be no doubt that the increased intellectual activity of the people of modern times has tended to augment the size of the cranium. Dr. Obernier proposes to measure the volume of the head by the following method: "The head is circumscribed by an elastic ribbon, the inferior edge of which corresponds in front with the root of the nose and behind with the external occipital protuberance. A circle of wood is then firmly fixed around the head by means of a screw, in such a manner that its inferior border corresponds exactly with the inferior border of the elastic ribbon. The individual then lies down, and bends the head forward so that it is received into a vase of water, the circle of wood resting on the edge of the vessel. The volume of water displaced represents the volume of the circumscribed part of the head, and is received into a graduated cylinder placed under the vase. The hair should be cut off short and the scalp be well oiled."-Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie and Annales Médico-Psychologiques, Janvier, 1868. Insanity in Switzerland.-Dr. Lunier, in the course of an interesting memoir, "De l'alienation mentale en Suisse," arrives at the following conclusions: "1. That in mountainous districts idiots and cretins are more numerous than the insane in the proportion of 159 to 93. 66 2. That in the rural districts the number of the insane is about the same as that of the idiots and cretins. 66 3. That insanity is more rare, and cretinism on the contrarary more common, on the mountains than on the plains. 4. That diseases of the mind, as a whole, (insanity,) idiocy and cretinism are more frequent on the mountains than on the plains in the proportion of 252 to 214, or about as 7 to 6." Annales Médico-Psychologiques, Jan., 1868. Functions of Different Parts of the Brain.-Mr. Robert Dunn, in a paper read before the last meeting of the British Association, entitled "Some Observations on the Phenomena of Life and Mind," gives the following views relative to the functions of the different lobes of the brain: "In conclusion, let me avow what are my own views and convictions as to the offices or psychical activities of which the vesicular matter is the seat in the three main divisions of the cerebrum, its anterior or frontal, middle or parietal, and posterior or occipital regions, the boundary lines of which may be considered to be broadly marked out and defined by the coronal suture before, and the lambdoidal behind. These convictions have not been hastily formed, and although they are in general accordance with, they are not founded upon, the multiplied cranioscopal observations of Gall, Spurzheim, Combe, and Carus, but upon the facts of pathology observed by myself, or recorded by others, and upon those of developmental anatomy, comparative and human, namely, that the anterior lobes of the brain are the seat of the intellectual, the middle of the personal or individual, and the posterior of the social and affectional activities or attributes of the human mind. In other words, my mind rests on the conviction-as I have elsewhere said in a former paper On the influence of Civilization upon the Development of the Brain among the different Races of Man,' which I read at the Birmingham meeting of this great association in 1865-that the anterior are the intellectual lobes of the brain, the seat of the intellectual faculties, the reasoning and reflecting powers; the middle lobes are the personal, the seat of the animal activities, of the individual or personal affections or attributes, and of the moral and religious intuitions of the mind; and that in the posterior lobes are seated the social and affectional activities and propensities, those endearing attributes which are the charm of our existence here, binding together in the bonds of affection the ties of friendship, of country, and of race. Moreover, I recognize, with Gratiolet and Vogt, three stages or planes of development throughout the hemispheres of the brain, and in their tripar tite division into anterior, middle, and posterior lobes; 1. The inferior, or lowest, the basilar and superciliary; 2. The middle, or medial frontal; and 3, the highest, the coronal, or superior frontal, the sole and exclusive prerogative of man. Nor do I hesitate to avow my belief that it is on the comparative evolution and relative size of the different cerebral lobes on these stages or planes of development that the individual character is mainly dependent, and that while the middle or personal are the dominating lobes of the brain, as to the animal, moral, and religious activities of the man, it is the anterior which indicate the character of his intellectual bearing, |