1599REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS.-LOOKING BACK.

leads from the intracapsular to the extracapsular protoplasm,perforating the capsule and the diaphragm. The float, thediaphragm, and the single bundle of tubes of communicationare unparalleled among radiolaria. Two plates accompanythe article.

The Field Naturalists’ Quccrterly. No. VI., vol. IL-Editedby GERALD LEiGHTON, M.D. Edin. London and Edinburgh :William Blackwood and Sons. Price 2s. 6d.-Each succeed-ing issue of this interesting quarterly seems to show someimprovement upon that of its predecessor. In the presentnumber, which is well illustrated, Mr. E. Kay Robinson, inan article on Birds, solicits help in the compilation of a dic-tionary of the language of birds, while Mr. F. G. Aflalo writesupon "The Spring Awakening of the Sea." In "ReptileStudies " the editor discusses the question of immunity, themuch debated question as to whether the mongoose is

immune or not to snake-bite receiving special attention.Mr. E M. Wood deals with the subject of Symbiosis. Amongthe contents will also be found papers on the White Cattleof Chartley, Staffordshire ; Newts in Spring ; the Nests and

Eggs of Birds ; the Great Black Woodpecker ; Rambles inthe Lincolnshire Wold; and a Naturalist’s Rambles inSouthern China. The frontispiece is reproduced from aphotograph showing four young robins on a bough, but thepicture in the copy before us has been spoilt by being pastedto the opposite page. This fault we have noticed before andit is a pity that such an excellent publication should bemarred by careless binding.

-Dublin Journal of Medical Saience.-The original com-munications in the May number are on the OperativeTreatment of Enlarged Prostate, by Sir William Thomson ;on the Diagnosis of Perforated Gastric Ulcer, by Mr. R. C B.Maunsell; and on Immunity, by Dr. R. J. Rowlette. TheClinical Report of the Gynaecological Department of the

Rotunda Hospital, by Dr. R. D. Purefoy, for the year endingNov. lst, 1902, also appears in this issue.

HOSPITAL MAGAZINES.

Charing Cross Hospital Gazette for May.-Under the

heading of American Quacks we are glad to see that two

popular magazines are called to account for publishing intheir advertisement columns the mendacious effusions of

quacks. Mr. P. L. Daniel commences a paper on the Con-servative Treatment of Tuberculosis of Bone and Joints and

- of Superficial Abscesses.

St. George’s Hospital Gazette for May opens with an articleon Compound Fractures by Mr. L. Jones in which he statesthat the results of the treatment of compound fractures atSt. George’s Hospital during the past three years show a

marked improvement. Out of 66 cases admitted only two- died (excluding those patients who died from shock within12 hours of admission). " This percentage of 3 stands out

markedly against those of 40, 41’ 8, and even 79 which weregiven by various authors in the pre-antiseptic days." In a

foot-note to the word stinkle, which occurs in " Kubla Khan,"a parody said to have been inspired by a nightmare con-sequent upon reading about a proposal to remove St. George’sHospital, the ways of the motor car are aptly described. Itas as follows :

Cf. nursery rhyme (new style).Stinkle, stinkle little car ! How I wonder whose you are!Chucking up the mud and dustLike a geyser on the bust.

Guy’s Hospital Gazette of May 23rd contains a clinicallecture on the Operative Treatment of Gastric Carcinoma

by Mr. Charters Symonds and publishes an essay on the

Pathology of Chorea to which was awarded the treasurer’sprize by the Physical Society of the hospital.

St. Mary’s Hospital Gazette for May.-In addition to apaper on Aphasia by Dr. Robert Maguire there is a shortbut interesting article on Medicine in China by Dr. ArthurStanley, health officer of Shanghai. " The Chinese Pharma-

copoeia," says the author, " is the largest in the world." Ournational summer game does not seem to be very popularamong the students at St. Mary’s Hospital, for in theeditorial notes of the gazette attention is called to the factthat exactly six men have signified their intention of playingcricket this year.

St. Thomas’s Hospital Gazette for lIay has for its

prominent feature Some Extracts from the Common-PlaceBook of William Savory, Surgeon and Student of the

Borough Hospitals in 1788-89." The picture of the life ofthis obscure country practitioner in the eighteenth centuryas depicted by the extracts from his diary and common-placebook makes very interesting reading.

Looking Back.FROM

THE LANCET, SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 1825.

FOREIGN DEPARTMENT.

ANALYSIS OF FOREIGN MEDICAL JOURNALS.

REVUE MEDICALE—MARS.

The Olfactory Nerve.M. MAGENDIE has lately reported to the Academy a patho-

logical fact, in confirmation of his former opinion, that theolfactory nerve is not the organ of smell. BECLARD had aman under his care in the Hopital la Pitie. in whom on dis-section the anterior portion of the brain and olfactory nerveswere found almost destroyed by ulceration, but who at thesame time retained his sense of smell. He took snuff, andwas quite capable of distinguishing its various qualities.

Arpearanee of a Medieal Work in Turkey !A medical work has made its appearance, the only one

during 150 years, at Constantinople, it is a folio, of 300 page?,with 56 copper-plate engravings, on anatomy and medicine,entitled, ., Mirat el abd fi techrih azail," by Chani-ZadehMehemmed-Ata-Oullah, member of the religious and judicialorder of the Oulema. The Oulemites fill the offices of mini-sters of religion, of the laws, of equity, and have alwaysendeavoured to cruh the rising genius of the nation. It isnot, therefore, a little surprising that a work on anatomy,physiology, medicine, and therapeutics, should be publishedby one of this fraternity. The substance of the work appearsto be a translation from various Frerch works. The authorbeing a Mussulman, what he says on vaccination is veryinteresting ; he gives its history, and insists on the manyadvantages it has over inoculation ; he concludes by givingdirections as to its use, and with some of the vaccine virus

brought from the village of Aiaz-aga, many thousands havebeen vaccinated in Turkey.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S HOSPITAL.

May 23.-Robert Accam, a3t. 74, hale constitution, wasadmitted into Baldwin’s ward, with a rupture of the corneaand protrusion of the iris on the right side, in consequenceof a blow from a cricket ball; his pulse was 80, full andstrong ; headache. Cold cloths were applied, and some

purgative medicine given (no local depletion!).28.-Pulse 85 ; more natural ; tongue covered with a slice

of Abernethy’s ’leather breeches’ pain in the head sub-sided ; slept well ; the eyelids and face tumid and of a lividcolour ; bowels open.

This is a common expression ot Mr. ABERNETHY’S, to denote afurred state of the tongue.

1600 "OPTICIANS" " AND SPECTACLE PRESCRIBING.

" Opticians" and Spectacle Pre-

scribing.

THE LANCET.

LONDON: SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 1903.

WE publish to-day two letters, from representative" opticians," demurring more or less to the statements

put forth in our leading article in THE LANCET of

May 9th, p. 1312, with regard to spectacle prescribing.Mr. AITCHISON is fearful that some of those statements

are " liable to misinterpretation," and he tells us that

YoUNG did not discover either astigmatism or the functionof accommodation. It is universally admitted among menof science that the credit of discovery is not due to

the person who first hints at a thing, but to him who

establishes the truth with regard to it, and this is the

precise position of YOUNG with regard to accommoda-

tion, although no claim of the discovery of the mere factof the occurrence of some change has ever been made

on his behalf. " It is now nearly 60 years," wrote

DoNDERS in 1864,1 "since THOMAS YOUNG satisfied him-

self that the power of accommodation depends upon a

change of form in the lens. Nor was he led to this con-viction merely by the exclusion of other hypotheses ; he ’adduced reasons which, properly understood, should be taken i,as positive proofs. As an hypothesis the idea had already Ifexisted, but previously to the time of YOUNG it could be

considered as little more than a loose assertion, to which novalue was to be attached." YOUNG’S claim to be the dis-

coverer of astigmatism has, we believe, never before been ’,

questioned and Mr. AITCHISON certainly does not suc-

ceed in questioning it successfully. The version given byDONDERS is that in relaxation of his eye YOUNG saw in his Ioptometer, held in a horizontal position, the double imagesof the thread intersect one another at seven inches from the

eye, but only at ten inches when in a vertical position.The optician CARY, to whom YOUNG communicated his dis-

covery, stated to him that he had before often found that near-

sighted people distinguished objects more acutely when the

glasses suited to them were held in a particular obliquedirection before the eye-a manoeuvre by which, at least

when strong glasses are necessary, a certain degree of

astigmatism may be corrected. On this basis Mr. AITCHISON

says that " CARY knew as much about astigmatism as

YOUNG did, particularly when the latter goes on to say,

’ The difference is not in the cornea, for it exists when

the effects of the cornea are removed by immersing the

eyes in water."’ What really happened was this, that

CARY had observed one of the effects of astigmatismin the cases of certain customers, but had not been led

by his observation to form even a surmise as to the

nature of the condition to which the effect was due.

1 Accommodation and Refraction of the Eye, p. 10.2 Ibid., p. 456.

His observation remained wholly barren-so barren, indeed,that long after his time opticians were exercising their

ingenuity in the construction of frames capable of holdingglasses in oblique positions before the eyes. Mr. AlTCHlSGN

himself, although an optician, seems to believe that YOUNGwas in error in saying that his own astigmatism was not

corneal. Mr. AITCHISON does not appear to know that

the lens of the eye is often astigmatic, and that YOUNG’S

experiment conclusively proves it to have been so in his

case. It is further remarkable that Y0UNG seems to have

been in no way incommoded by’his defect, insomuch thathe regarded the malformation of his lens only as a matterof philosophical interest, and had no inducement to designglasses for its relief. When Sir GEORGE AIRY discovered

a similar defect in himself, he, not as an opticianbut as a mathematician, calculated the curves requiredfor its correction, and ordered lenses which were made forhim by the optician CHAMBLANT of Paris. It did not

become customary for ophthalmic surgeons to prescribesuch glasses until DoNDERS in 1862 by the publication ofhis treatise, Astigmatismus und Cylindrische Glaeser," hadcalled general attention to the subject and had arrangedwith the opticians, NACHET of Paris, and PAETZ and FLOHRof Berlin, to supply the lenses to all who might requirethem. The discovery was made by YoUNG in 1793 and

remained unfruitful in spite of CARY and other opticians.It was made again by AIRY and again remained unfruitful

except in his own case, and it was not until DoNDERS under-took the general investigation of refractive errors that

astigmatism became understood and the means of relievingit universally accessible. We think the contentions of

Mr. AITCHISON may be dismissed from further consideration.

Mr. LAURANCE joins issue with us mainly on a questionof words. He says, "All discoveries in optics have beenmade by opticians, whether medical men also or not is

beside the question." Few things are more useful than

definitions and we may therefore say that we used the

word "optician" " as a term of courtesy to indicate a

person who was engaged in the sale, or sometimes also in

the manufacture, of optical instruments and not to indicateone who was conversant with the physics of light. The

latter sense is, no doubt, the more correct, but the formerhas somewhat usurped its place in common parlance. We

challenge Mr. LAURANCE to name a single discovery re-

lating to the structure, optics, refraction, or employ-ment of the eye which has been made by an "optician" "

who was not " also a medical man." We further

differ by the whole sky from his opinion that anyinformation likely to be obtained by spectacle-sellersin the course of their trade education can ever render

them qualified to prescribe spectacles for any defects of

vision in which the sufferers might not safely be trustedto choose for themselves. The eye is a living organ as wellas an optical instrument. As a living organ it is subject tomalformations and diseases of numerous kinds, and its

diseases and malformations constantly complicate and are

complicated by its optical defects. It is impossible foranyone to deal adequately with the latter who is not able todeal also with the former. The first aim of an ophthalmicsurgeon, when he is consulted about a case of defec-

tive sight, is to ascertain whether the eye itself be