The same storehouse of facts-the case-books of St. George's Hospital-furnishes the other editor, Mr. T. Holmes, with the material for the "Statistics of Strangulated Hernia," as adduced to elucidate some facts relative to this lesion and its surgical treatment. This paper will recommend itself to our surgical readers, especially to those who desire to ascertain the results of cases at St. George's Hospital with the view of comparing therewith their own experience.

A case of convulsions, occurring after delivery, is narrated by Dr. A. D. Mackay, who in the accompanying remarks expresses his opinion to be that the puerperal convulsions occurring in women whose urine is albuminous depend on an impure state of the blood, or excrementitious matter in it; and it also appears to be his belief that albuminuria is, as a rule, associated with convulsions, though these do not necessarily follow on its existence.

The volume concludes with reports on the medical and on the surgical cases admitted into St. George's Hospital during the year 1866-67. The medical report is from Dr. Reginald E. Thompson, and the surgical from Mr. Edmund C. Ring, the surgical registrar. Each report is accompanied by copious tables. The first table of medical cases exhibits the nature of the disease, the total number admitted, the total number of deaths, the percentage of deaths, the circumstance of complicacations with other diseases, and the deaths among complicated cases. To these particulars are added brief observations. A second table sets forth the cases where lardaceous or amyloïd degeneration was discovered after death, and shows the age of the patients, the disease for which they were especially treated, and its duration and symptoms. Subjoined is a notice of the organs found degenerated. A third table is occupied with various annotations on some of the cases of pneumonia admitted during the year. These cases were thirty-one in number. The tables of surgical cases and of operations performed are even more extensive. The first set refer to compound fractures, and indicate their cause-the limb injured, the state of fracture, and the treatment and results. A few brief remarks are appended in a final column. The cases of pyæmia are likewise tabulated in such a way as to convey a clear conception of their history. Last of all comes a tabular statement of operations performed during 1866, divided into classes according as the operations were on the head, neck, or face, on the upper extremity, on the thorax, on the abdomen, on the genito-urinary organs, or on the lower extremity. The surgical report concludes with a tabular outline of the surgical cases admitted during the year 1866.

The medical and surgical registrars of the hospital deserve great credit and encouragement for the immense pains taken by them in framing these tables, and in. collecting the large amount of information conveyed in their several columns. Indeed, to these reports of the cases admitted into the St. George's during the year in strict language belong the title of reports of St. George's Hospital. It is these that especially demonstrate the amount of work done--of good effected by the hospital. Many of the other contributions in the volume are founded upon observations made in the course of private practice by former students, and, consequently, in strict parlance, constitute no portion of the St. George's Hospital Reports.

Morever, both Dr. Thompson and Mr. Ring supply notes on very many cases and groups of cases, conveying memoranda of peculiar symptoms, of remarkable pathological conditions, and of particulars of treatment; so that, indeed, the student is supplied with a very excellent sketch of the year's practice, both medical and surgical, at the hospital, whilst every medical man is furnished, both by notes and tables, with particulars and summaries of great value in instituting investigations relative to almost every disease of temperate climates.

We trust that the plan of publishing such volumes of hospital reports may prove no temporary fashion, but will assume a permanent character; a consummation to be attained, however, only by an encouraging list of subscribers.

REVIEW V.

1. The Physiology of Man, designed to represent the existing state of Physiological Science, as applied to the functions of the Human Body. By AUSTIN FLINT, Jun., M.D., Professor of Physiology and Microscopy in the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York, &c. &c. Vols. I and II. New York. 1866 and 1867. Pp. 502 and 556.

2. A Treatise on Human Physiology, designed for the use of Students and Practitioners of Medicine. By JOHN С. DALTON, M.D., Professor of Physiology and Microscopic Anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, &c. &c. Philadelphia. 1867. Fourth edition. Pp. 695. 3. Outlines of Physiology, Human and Comparative. By JOHN MARSHALL, F.R.S., Professor of Surgery in University College, London; Surgeon to the University College Hospital. Illustrated by numerous woodcuts; in two volumes. 1867. Pp. 607 and 699.

4. Handbook of Physiology. By WILLIAM SENHOUSE KIRKES, M.D. Sixth edition. Edited by W. MORRANT BAKER, F.R.C.S., &c. London. 1867. Pp. 802.

5. Lehrbuch der Physiologie für Akademische Vorlesungen und zum Selbst-Studium. OTTO FUNKE. 1863-6. Bandi and ii. A Treatise on Physiology for Academic Lectures and for Self Instruction. By Dr. OTTO FUNKE, Professor of Physiology in the University of Freiburg. Fourth thoroughly revised edition; in two volumes. Pp. 1014 and 1182.

6. Lessons in Elementary Physiology. By THOMAS H. HUXLEY, LL.D., F.R.S. London. 1866. Pp. 319.

7. Quain's Anatomy. Seventh edition. Edited by Dr. SHARPEY, Dr. THOMSON, and Dr. CLELAND. 1864-67.

8. On the Elimination of Nitrogen during Rest and Exercise on a Regulated Diet of Nitrogen and on a Diet without Nitrogen. By E. A. PARKES, M.D., F.R.S. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Nos. 89 and 94. 1867.

9. Lehrbuch der Physiologischen Chemie. Von Dr. W. KUHNE, Leipsic. Pp. 605. 1868.

Treatise on Physiological Chemistry. By Dr. W. KUHNE. 10. Archives de Physiologie normale et Pathologique, publiées par MM. BROWN-SÉQUARD, CHARCOT ET VULPIAN. Paris. 1868. Parts I and II.

Archives of Normal and Pathological Physiology. Edited by MM. BROWN-SÉQUARD, CHARCOT, and VULPIAN.

11. The Journal of Anatomy and Physiology. Conducted by G. M. HUMPHRY, M.D., F.R.S., and W. TURNER, M.B., F.R.S.E. Second series. Nos. 1 and 2, with nine plates. Pp. 452. Macmillan and Co. 1868.

12. Essais de Physiologie Philosophique.

DURAND (de Gros). Paris. 1866.

Par M. J. P.

Essays on Philosophical Physiology. By M. J. P. DURAND.
WITH slight modification the old Hanstown motto of

"Nurembergs hand

Geht durch alles land

may be applied to physiology. With each succeeding year its hand reaches into more and more distant provinces of science, and its connection with other branches of knowledge becomes more extensive and close. Occupied of old as its etymology implies, with the interpretation of nature in all her varied aspects, its scope subsequently became limited to the consideration of the general phenomena exhibited in the life of animals and vegetables-embracing, therefore, the science of biology as now constituted. Still more recently its aim and

object has been held to be restricted to the investigation of the laws of life, and to the description of the functions of the several organs in opposition to their general and minute anatomy. Within the last few years, however, in spite of these limitations, physiology has again begun to extend her relations, and is now most intimately connected with chemistry, botany, and physics. That its progress should be slow is by no means surprising when it is remembered that it is engaged with the examination of incomparably the most complex phenomena of nature, but the very complexity and variability of these phenomena possess a powerful charm for the highest class of minds, and we may refer to the researches of a host of observers on the electrical properties of nerve and muscle, as well as to the recent investigation of Stokes on Cruorine; of Haughton and Frankland on Muscular Force; and of Helmholtz on the Eye and Ear, as evidence of the interest it excites in those whose studies for the most part lie in a different direction, as well as of the light which may be thrown upon its several departments by those who are pursuing widely different lines of inquiry. The direct connection that exists between physiology and pathology, and the evident and immediate bearing that all questions of physiology have on medicine and surgery, is constantly becoming more clearly recognised, and we trust that in a few years the impropriety, to use no harsher term, of permitting a student to enter on the practice of his profession without a sound knowledge of what must always be considered as one of its most important bases will no longer exist.

The two works at the head of our list by Dr. Austin Flint and Dr. Dalton are highly creditable to our American brethren. Both constitute excellent text-books of physiology, well arranged, perspicuously written, and enriched by original observations. The treatise of Dr. Flint is as yet incomplete, the two first volumes only having been published; but if the remaining portions are compiled-for every physiological work embracing the whole subject must be in a great measure a compilationwith the same care and accuracy, the whole may vie with any of those that have of late years been produced either in our own or in foreign languages. Dr. Flint is already favorably known as the author of various physiological essays published in the American Journal of Sciences;' and as he occupies the important posts of Professor of Physiology and Microscopy in the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York, and in the Long Island College Hospital, it is natural that he should furnish his pupils with a text-book as a supplement to his lectures. We may remark in passing that there are some advantages as well as disadvantages connected with the publication of

such a work as the present, in parts. On the one hand, it enables the author to round off each portion perfectly, making every section complete in itself, whilst a sheet or two more or less is a matter of little consequence. On the other hand, the exhaustive manner in which he is tempted to treat the particular subject to which he is devoting his attention, necessarily takes up much time; and when he has completed it, the reading, repetition of experiments, &c., required for the next part, delays the progress of the whole work to so great an extent, that the first sections published are rarely up to the time, especially in so progressive a science as physiology. A well-known instance of this occurred in the case of Dr. Todd's 'Cyclopædia;' and in spite of the originality as well as the acumen of the authors, was also perceptible in Messrs. Todd and Bowman's Physiology, the publication of which extended over some fifteen or sixteen years. The first volume of Dr. Flint's work, though published in 1866, has a preface with the date of October, 1865, and the second, of June, 1867, which, certainly considering the labour involved, implies very steady application ou the part of the author; but there still remain the two most difficult sections in the whole range of physiology, the nervo-muscular apparatus and reproduction, to be considered; these will, doubtless, occupy two if not three more volumes; and allowing the same space of time between the appearance of each, Dr. Flint will have concluded his labours at the end of 1870, an interval of at least five years occurring between the commencement and the termination of the same edition-a period which is sufficient, as is actually the case with the extensive subject of the nutrition, and microscopic anatomy of muscle, very materially to modify the statements made in the earlier parts of the work.

The first volume of Dr. Flint's treatise commences with a description of the saliva and organic constituents of the body, which, on the whole, is sufficiently good. The remarks on the sugars may be taken as an example of the style of these introductory sections. After giving an account of the composition and properties of the various saccharine substances met with in the body and in the food, the several tests are fully given, including Moore's, Trommer's, Barreswil's, Maumene's, the fermentation test, and the evidence derived from the growth of torulæ. The origin and functions of sugar are then briefly discussed, and he concludes by remarking that, in the present state of science, we are justified in saying that sugar is important in the process of development and nutrition at all periods of life, though the precise way in which it influences these processes is not fully understood. Dr. Flint makes no men