Book Reviews.

MARY RONALD'S CENTURY COOK Book. New York: The Century Company.

The market is full of cook books, good, band and indifferent. Some of them are a success as works of art, even if poor from a culinary standpoint. Most of them are artistic in comparison with the prosaic compilations of cooking and domestic recipes used by our grandmothers.

This "Century Cook Book" starts out with an innovation. On its first cover page is a conspicuous and comprehensive time table for the guidance and possible despair of the cook!

As a foreword there is this quotation from Ruskin :

"To be good cook means the knowledge of all fruits, herbs, balms and spices, and of all that is healing and sweet in field and groves, and savory in meats; means carefulness, inventiveness, watchfulness, willingness and readiness of appliance. It means the economy of your great-grandmothers and the science of modern chemists. It means much tasting and no wasting. It means English thoroughness, French art and Arabian hospitality. It means, in fine, that you are perfectly and always ladies (loaf givers) and are to see that every one has something nice to eat." The preface is rather unique and quite out of the rut of humdrum and conventionality in which such efforts usually travel. A sample of it will bear quoting:

"In France various honors are awarded to cooks. Accomplished chefs de cuisine are by compliment called cordon-bleu, which is an ancient and princely order. A successful culinary production takes the name of the inventor, and by it his fame often lasts longer than that of many men who have achieved positions in the learned professions. Cooking is there esteemed a service of especial merit; hence, France ranks all nations in gastronomy.

"Although definite honors are not conferred on cooks elsewhere, good cooking is everywhere appreciated, and there is no rea

son why it should not be the rule instead of the exception.

"In large establishments it may be said to prevail, but in many moderate households the daily fare is of a quality which satisfies no other sense than that of hunger, the hygienic requirements and esthetic possibilities being quite unknown or disregarded. This is what Savarin designates. as feeding in contradistinction to dining.

"The author believes that the women of to-day, because of their higher education, have a better understanding of domestic duties; that hygiene, economy, system and methods are better understood and more generally practised."

"Receipts are given for simple and inexpensive, as well as elaborate and costly dishes, and they are intended to be of use to the inexperienced, as well as the trained, cook. The rules are given in precise language, with definite measurement and time, so that no supervision by the mistress will be required for any receipt given the cook.

"Economy, practicability and the resources of the average kitchen have been constantly borne in mind.

"The illustrations will aid materially in serving dishes, as they complete and demonstrate the receipts." *

"The author strongly urges the trial of new dishes, and breaking away from the routine of habit."

The book proper begins with some timely suggestions as to the etiquette of invitations and dinner-giving. Then follow equally pertinent directions as to Manner of Serving Dinners, Laying the Table, Table Decorations, Courses, The Home Dinner, Serving the Informal Dinner, Luncheon, The Five O'Clock Tea, A Homily on Cooking, Cooking as a Pleasure and an Accomplishment, To Train a Green Cook, Economical Living, Wastefulness, How to Utilize What Some Cooks Throw Away, Emergencies, Things to Remember, and Care of Utensils.

All these topics are aptly and artistically illustrated, and complete Part I of the work.

Part II plunges boldly into cooking. proper in all its varieties, and the author does her work carefully and well.

PRACTICAL FIRST PRINCIPLES.-Simplifying the Study of Normal and Abnormal Structure and Function, and Aiding Diagnosis. Designed for the Use of Students and practitioners of Medicine. By A. H. P. Leuf, M.D., Associate Editor of The Medical Council, Philadelphia. Published by The Medical Council, Twelfth and Walnut streets, 8vo, 105 pp., nearly 50 illustrations, almost all new and original. Price, $1.00 net.

This work is original in conception, and recognizes the detached mode of instruction now and always in vogue in the teaching of medicine. On this account it has been offered to the profession to overcome this deficiency by supplying the connecting links between the various departments. To the beginner in the study of medicine, it gives a comprehensive résumé of some of the most important principles which he has to continually apply, easing his understanding and greatly simplifying his studies. It teaches underlying principles, so that a fact learned of one tissue applies equally to all. Thus inflammatory processes are divided. into acute or chronic, parenchymatous and interstitial. Once the easily remembered facts of these inflammatory changes are understood of one tissue, they become applicable to all, so that if the histologic structure and the function of a part are known, its significance and symptomatology may be quite accurately inferred.

The book eases the work of the student and simplifies that of the practising physician. It is to be read, studied, digested and absorbed.

Beginning with protoplasm and the cell, it preceeds in sequence to the consideration of tissues, organs, apparatuses, systems, the body as a whole, cell nutrition, cell physiology, cell pathology, general principles, their illustrative application, nomenclature, and an index dealing with an explanation of the microscope.

There are few men who do not need this book, providing they are true students and conscientious practitioners. To all such it will prove a source of pleasure and of profit.

"COUNTRY LIFE IN AMERICA" FOR FEBRUARY.

Country Life in America for February is an enlarged number of this beautiful magazine of the world out-of-doors, representing the new expansion of American life to the country. "In Garb. of White," the frontispiece, is a remarkable picture of a New England woods road in winter. Among the leading features are "Skibo Castle," the summer home of Andrew Carnegie in the Scottish Highlands; “A Sniff at Old Gardens," by J. P. Mowbray, who treats of the vestiges of a past home life on the old Hudson River manors; and "Cuckoo," an illustrated poem of the woods, by John Burroughs. Other articles and su perb pictures touch upon every side of coun try life. "Prize Dogs" represent St. Bernards of world-wide fame; "Two 'Possums and Several Mistakes," by A. Radclyffe Dugmore, is illustrated by inimitable photographs of the live animals under unique circumstances; while "The Trees," is a large plate of rare beauty covering the two central pages of the large magazine. Of gardens and practical garden-making there is "An Experience with the Soil," in which a suburbanite tells of years of enthusiastic work in growing a wild garden of some eighty kinds of flowers, shrubs, and aquatic plants; and there are also articles on the construction and care of the hot-bed, with suggestions for starting early vegetables and flowers. A series of photographs is devoted to "The Abandoned Farm Country," where, amid old friends-the marigold, hollyhock and climbing rose-may be found pleasant summer homes, modest, but quite as much the aim of this successful magazine as the ideal country seats, with their dairies, blooded stock, and fox-hunts.

Query 112. I have read your essay on "Music and Medicine" with much pleasure and interest. It has awakened in my mind something that I should like to have explained. In my early youth I was very sensitive to the sound of a drum. When in the street with my mother, the distant beating of a drum would make me scream and tremble with fright, and I would have to be taken into some place of refuge. My mother thought I was afraid of soldiers, for when one would pass us on the street I would instinctively clutch her dress, and nestle close to her protective arms, for in my mind a soldier was closely associated with a drum. I was quite a young woman before I could overcome that nervous thrill, on hearing a drum, even in a theater. I felt that there was some discordance of my nerves. I was taken to hear the opera of "Fra Diavolo." The overture commenced with the beating and rolling of the drums. which continued for a few bars, and I felt relieved when that particular part had ceased. I have long overcome this "inharmonious vibration" of the nerves, if that is what you call it. But as soon as I began to study music, my piano teacher brought me many overtures to practise, among which was that of "Fra Diavolo," with its drum solo imitated in the piano music. I refused to practise it except on condition that the drum solo must be omitted. In those days I was a wayward girl of fourteen. I have since learned the importance of the drum in an orchestra, and would not have it abolished. But to return to the "vibration." I am very sensitive to fine orchestral music, and when I hear something grand, for example, one of Beethoven's Symphonies. I feel that same old drum thrill as in days of old. Your analysis of the sounds of nature are rurally suggestive and sweet.

While reading I seemed to smell the new-mown hay and the red clover fields, the jerking song of the cricket, and the incense of the white elder blossoms wafted from the fence corners, and to hear again the laughing, gurgling brook as its waters went dashing and singing over stones, and forming pools under the exposed roots of the water willows that helped to conceal the speckled beauties that the patient angler was so intent on hooking.

Now, a little about your advice to send patients suffering from nervous disorders to the opera and concert halls, as a remedy for the blues and nervous disease. Suppose they have no taste for or even dislike music. I heard a man say "he did not like music, that it was only a pleasant noise." I also know a woman who is extremely nervous, in fact, she is sometimes on the verge of nervous prostration, but she has no taste for music. She is highly cultivated, admires poetry, and has been a successful teacher. But when she goes to the park she gets as far from the band-stand as possible. If sent to the opera, I believe she would go wild, and make her escape at the first opportunity.

You must pardon me for making this epistle so long, but I wanted to say so much, and you touched a chord that set me thinking. I am very fond of the country. My father was a sportsman and cultivated that taste in me by taking me in the woods fishing and shooting, calling my attention to pretty bits of nature in our rambles. J. L. T., New York City.

Answer.-We give Mrs. Thorpe's letter and query in full, and have only to sav that the paper itself referred to people who are so unfortunate as to have no music in their souls, and consequently no taste for music. In fact, as the paper stated, to such music and noise are synonymous. We incline to think, however, that even those natures are not always oblivious to the beauties of all music. They may be, for all we know, in some instances, more susceptible and more sensitively and esthetically attuned than ordinary music lovers in that they appreciate only the music of nature-bird songs, the voices of the night-the "Waldweben" of the Wagner music dramas.

To these rare natures orchestral imitations of Nature's music may sound harsh and discordant. We must send them to the woods, to the brookside, and the cricket on the hearth!

Query 113. You intimate editorially that you do not intend to advertise any products that are not reliable and meritorious.

Please inform me as to the real therapeutic value of "Hemaboloids," advertised by the Palisade Manufacturing Company and "Seng," put out by the Sultan Drug Company of St. Louis. J. R. F., Dakota.

Answer.-"Hemaboloids" is one of the very best ferruginous and blood-renewing preparations with which we have ever met. We have yet to learn of a case in which it has disappointed either the physician or the patient.

"Seng" we have used in cases of great debility of the digestive organs with the happiest results. It is decidedly pleasant to the taste and certainly works wonders with weak stomachs.

In cases of anemia with its accompanying want of appetite and inability to assimilate the use of the two in conjunction proves quite satisfactory.

Query 114. What is now considered the lowest or primary form of organic structure or matter? I am a little foggy in my mind as_to_protoplasm, cells, amebæ, etc. J. C. F., Mo. Answer. In the language of Leuf "the sim

plest form of life consists of an easily flowing, gelatinous-like mass called protoplasm in general, and known in its most independent form as the protameba. It is one of the simplest forms of animal beings, having an irregular, constantly changing outline, and appearing uniformly homogeneous, with large and small granular sprinklings, under a glass of moderate power. It is a nitrogenous carbon compound of albumin, and often contains fat and sometimes mineral substances. It has the property of extending parts of itself in any direction to a sufficient extent to encircle other objects and draw itself completely around them. In this way it gets its nourishment, extracting from particles thus met in its path whatever is of advantage, and allowing the remainder to fall away from any part of itself where it happens to be nearest the surface; this is ingestion."

This substance coagulates after the death of the animal or organism containing it, and is also coagulated by a moderate elevation of the normal temperature. It reproduces its kind by fission or separation, each particle or protameba dividing into two parts, each part reaching its mature stage and then each reproducing itself.

The ameba is another form of the same class. but is more active, contains a nucleus and larger amount of alimentary contents, some air spaces or sacs, with unassimilable matter.

The protamebæ and amebæ are the essential constituent of cells which is assumed to be the anatomical unit. All organic bodies are composed of a complex aggregation of cells.

Cells are further subdivided according to their particular form or structure into giant cells, epithelial, and endothelial. Further distinctions are known as glandular epithelial, columnial fusiform, ciliated, etc. All these are called lower cells, because of their inferior function. So-called higher cells are distinctive of special parts of the body, as the muscles, liver, pancreas, nervous system, etc.

There are two varieties of blood cells, generally called corpuscles, white and red. The white blood cells are also called leucocytes, while the red ones are called erythrocytes. The proportion of white to red corpuscles in the blood in health is one to from 300 to 500. In anemia this ratio is seriously disturbed. This rather more than answers your questions.

DR. LOUIS KNAPP, a practising physician. of St. Louis, has separated himself forever from his wife and four children to nurse Dong Gong, a Chinese leper. A quarantine is being built by the city authorities, where the doctor and his patient will remain secluded from the world. The doctor has taken his library with him and purposes devoting his time to the study of leprosy.

means of two powerful electro-magnets (after radiographic location of the foreign bodies), introduced through tracheotomy openings, whereby nails in the bronchi of children were successfully removed. The method is ingenious, and, we believe, entirely novel.

A DOCTOR may throw away his cigar or put his pipe in his pocket before entering the patient's room, but her ipecac headache is much aggravated by the smell of dead tobacco smoke, and she says to her aunt: "Don't let that man in here again when I have one of these headaches or I shall be sick all over the bed."

"ELECTRICITY" gives an account of two operations that have been performed by

A CHILD Swallowed a round whistle about the size of a quarter-dollar. A neighbor who dropped in advised the mother to give him the unbeaten white of egg, telling her that it would form a coating around the object, which would be carried off through the bowels. This proved true. The same mother afterward had a bristle from her tooth brush lodge in her throat, causing annoyance and irritation. After trying in various ways to dislodge it she thought of the white of egg, and in a little while the offending bristle had disappeared.-Good Housekeeping.

Vol. XVIII.

No. 4.

THE average physician is ready enough to adopt any new theory or "any old thing" in drugs, while too slow to see merit in the resources of hygiene or the potential possibilities of natural remedies. He is alike indifferent to sunshine, hot dry air, hot and cold water or medical electricity. He is as ignorant of the consequences of over-feeding as of the benefits of judicious fasting. He is equally indifferent to the importance of ventilation, the advantages of skilled massage, or the value of suggestive therapeutics. Wise men are few, while the wouldbe wise are many. Some years since, when the late Professor Youmans returned from England, before he had established the popular Science Monthly, he gave a lecture at Cooper Union on what he termed "The Hasty Pudding of the Brain," in which he declared that "We are all cracked skillets." It will be readily conceded that many of our wisest men commit some of the unwisest acts. For nearly forty years I was intimately acquainted with a highly accomplished physician who has now gone to "that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns," whose memoirs therefore must be treated with all consideration and kindness. He was an efficient worker in health fields, but seemed to be quite inclined to distort physiological facts in relation to the value and uses of dry heat and the eliminating functions of the skin; facts which he ignored or distorted to suit

his own convenience. He wrote learnedly and wisely of "Hydropathy," "Hygiene," "Swedish Movements," "Health by Exercise," "Massage," "The Delusion of Tonics," "Pelvic Therapeutics," and "Diseases of Women;" and for his literary achievements deserves a place in The Hall of Fame. More especially does he deserve that a monument be erected to his memory by the myriads of grateful women whom he has rescued from destructive, diabolical and pernicious surgery. When we see a man of such general wisdom promulgating special heresies, such as I have referred to, we are confounded and compelled to pause while we seek the possible cause of what may be termed his unaccountable idiosyncrasies. Shall we liken him to the average physician who would rather see his patients. die, than to see them recover by other resources than his own? This is tantamount to saying to these sufferers, "If you want to get well of your maladies you must come to my shop. You must keep away from dry heat; you must take my pellets, my powders, tablets, tinctures or triturates." Speculate as we may in this matter, the conundrum is a difficult one, and we give it up. It is hard to account for such physiologic vagaries. Dry hot air of proper temperature, properly administered, is a great conservator of health and promoter of longevity. In many abnormal conditions it is practically a panacea. It has but one rival