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Reviews and Notices of Books.An Exposition of the Fallacies in the Hypothesis of Mr. Daewin.

By C. R. BREE, M.D., F.Z.S. pp..418. London: Long-mans. 1872.

THIS book is the production of an uncompromising op-ponent of the Darwinian hypothesis. Dr. Bree can seeno good in it at all, but hews away at it root and branch.He everywhere maintains what may be termed the orthodoxviews-the doctrines of special creation, the immutabilityof species, and the teleological argument that all thingswere created in perfect adaptation to the purposes theyhave to subserve, and that whatever modifications they un-dergo, if any, are effected by the direct interposition of theDeity. In the work before us, Dr. Bree attacks the prin-cipal points of the Darwinian hypothesis in detail, takingup sometimes a strong, sometimes a weak position, quotingfreely from Flourens, Agassiz, Mivart, Haughton, andStirling, but rarely advancing any novel argument of hisown. Thus he adduces Agassiz’s statement that so farfrom there being a paucity of species in the early periodsof the world’s history, there is evidence to show thatwithin similar areas there was as great a diversity of animalsas now exists. He dwells upon Flourens’ observations inregard to the immutability of species, upon the complexityand wonderful adjustment of structure to function in thecase of the eye, upon the enormous difference in theirmental powers between man and animals, upon the vast-ness of the time required for the changes effected-a periodso vast that it is questionable whether sun and earth havelasted so long ; and he ridicules the theory of pangenesisand the idea of sexual selection producing permanent varia-tion. All of these are strong points in his favour, thoughthe last two are rather offshoots of the Darwinian hypo-thesis than intrinsic parts of the hypothesis itself.On the other hand, he deals very feebly with some of the

strongest arguments that speak for the hypothesis. Hemakes light, for instance, of the wide and important sub-ject of development, which, in many ways, has so directa bearing upon the doctrine of evolution. Has Dr. Breeread the essays of Mr. Parker? What explanation has heto offer of those transitory conditions shown by that ob-server to exist in the development of the higher animalswhich call to mind the permanent conditions of the lower-of those strange glimpses of peculiar cartilages and bonesand structures, which are so rapidly replaced by othersbetter adapted for the needs of the adult animal that theycan scarcely be admitted to fulfil even a temporary purposein the foetus ? Dr. Bree treats far too lightly the evidencederived from rudimentary and exceptional structures-suchas the appearance of unusual muscles and variations in the

typical arrangement and disposition of vessels. He at-

tempts to explain the occurrence of unusual muscles on thetheory of Haughton-that of least action; a view that is

scarcely tenable, to take one example only, in such a caseas that of the insertion of the digastric into the angle oithe lower jaw in man-an insertion normally met with invarious animals. He makes, again, but a poor answer tcthe various difficulties urged by Herbert Spencer against theidea of special creation, basing his reply on his own belieiin, and perfect satisfaction with, the teleological view, andthe difficulty of accounting for beauty on the Darwiniantheory; and, finally, after stating that Mr. Spencer’s ques.tions demand an immediate answer, concludes by sayingwith all the emphasis of italics, " We cannot answer thesequestions."The position taken up by Dr. Bree would, it appears tc

us, put a stop to all investigation of nature, for he contende

that it is beyond the limits of human reason to furnish anysound explanation of the modus operandi of God in creation.It would rather appear, quite apart from the theory ofDarwin, that this is one of the most important objects forwhich our intellects were given to us. Our physical andphysiological inquiries are all so many attempts to explainthe mode in which the Creator works to bring about thedesired results ; and, so far as the religious aspect of thequestion is concerned, which is not seldom hinted at in Dr.Bree’s work, we are quite in accordance with the newschool in being unable to discover any necessary differencein the depth and sincerity of religious feeling, or in theidea of the power, the goodness, and the wisdom of theCreator, between those who hold the doctrine of creation

by law and those who maintain that of special creation.Upon the whole, we should scarcely expect to find Dr.

Bree’s work exercise much influence in staying the progressof the new opinions, or do more than satisfy those whohave already made up their minds against them.

Jean de Vigo. Le Mal .Français. 1514. Traduction et Com-Jean de Vigo. Le Mal Français. 1514. Traduction et Com-mentaires par ALFRED FOURNIER, Professeur agrégé a.la Faculte de Paris, &c. pp. 135. Paris: G. Masson.1872.

M. FOURNIER is as punctual as he is clever, and wehave here in due time 11 Jean de Vigo," which was

promised to follow 11 De Béthencourt." We offered, sometime ago, a short analysis of the latter. ( LaE LANCET,vol. ii. 1871, p. 715). And we now are happy to welcomethe present volume of the series.The share which M. Fournier has in editing "Jean de

Vigo" may be estimated when we say that the actualtranslation of the text occupies only 59 pages of the 135 ofwhich the book is composed. The former are enrichedwith most interesting notes and commentaries equalling inbulk the whole of the text; and the work is preceded by aletter supposed to be written by Jean de Vigo, from theElysian Fields, to the present generation of syphilo-graphers. This letter is a humorous and telling produc-tion, showing that the so-called modern discoveries in

syphilis are simply no discoveries at all, since most of thephenomena and symptoms of the disease had been clearlydescribed more than three centuries ago by Vigo andothers.Most instructive, in many points of view, are the chapters

on the treatment advised by the old surgeon, and excellenthints n-ay be gathered from his polypharmaceutic prescrip-tions. In fact the reading of the text and of the appropriatenotes at the bottom of the pages forms, for any medicalman, a most attractive occupation. If we have any faultto find it is the circumstance of the commentaries, whichoccupy no less than forty pages, being thrown at the endof the book, thus necessitating constant interruptions inthe perusal of the work ; and also that the learned authoris a somewhat too great laudator temporis acti. Those whoare not fully acquainted with the history of syphilis willbe highly interested by Vigo’s descriptions; and they willbe able to form an idea of the fearful onset of the disease

at its first appearance in 1494..

Most of the questions which now-a-days divide syphilo-graphers are discussed by M. Fournier in a masterly man-ner. He passes in review various points of interest, suchas the hard base of the chancre, the regular sequence of thegeneral symptoms, the glandular complications, the noc-turnal osteocopic pains, the affections of the eyes, the

syphilitic cachexia, &0. M. Fournier shows that Vigo hadperfectly known and described the hard sore, and that headvised and practised the destruction of the chancre in theearly stage. On this subject our commentator indulges in

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a little rap at his former master, M. Ricord, and showsthat, when the latter advised such cauterisations, he wasonly repeating what Vigo had done three centuries and ahalf before.M. Fournier dwells, very properly, on the unfortunate

obstinacy with which syphilis seems to fasten upon somepatients, and asks whether the diathesis or morbid dispo-sition is ever eradicated. It is interesting to see what Vigothought on this head. He says: " When the French diseaseis confirmed, we can palliate some of the symptoms ; but weseldom succeed (and this I must not conceal) in completelycuring the morbid disposition." It is consoling to think,however, that such cases are not frequently met with.Were we not limited to space, we would fain follow M.

Fournier through his clever commentaries on the most im-portant points of the nature and treatment of syphilis ; butwe have said enough to show how highly instructive andinteresting is this translation of Vigo’s book.The next work announced is 11 The Method of Treating

the Venereal Disease by Thierry de Héry."

On Mental Capacity in Relation to Insanity, Crime, andModern Society. By CHRISTOPHER SMITH, M.D. London :Baillière, Tindall, and Cox. 1872.

WE welcome every addition to the library of medico-psychology, if only as evidence of the growing interest in asubject of the deepest importance to society and to the in-dividual. Now that that department of medicine has been

’

rescued from the domain of theory and relegated to itsproper position among the inductive sciences, every culti-vator of it, however humble, is of service, though his con-tribution to the accumulated fund of fact and doctrineembodies nothing more than his personal experience. Fromsuch tributary matter, flowing in from every side, we mayexpect to see amassed the materials of an exhaustive text-book, at once scientific and practical, such as may be of useto the medical man in his profession, and particularly onthe occasions when he is brought face to face with counselin a court of law. To the legal faculty, moreover, such abody of well-digested opinion is even more necessary, de-

ficient as that profession is in the special training andmode of ratiotination required to decide between the subtlerforms of so-called " moral insanity." Excellent as are the

majority of contemporary works on medico - psychology- that of Dr. Maudsley being perhaps the one which

English medicine would most cheerfully submit to therefined judgment and experience of a Meynert or a Guis-lain-we are entitled to expect yet superior accessions tomedico-psychological literature in proportion as the profes-sional mind becomes more and more enlightened on theobscure and momentous problems with which that litera-ture deals.We fear that we cannot assign more than a very humble

place to Dr. Smith’s contribution, as embodied in the bookbefore us. Su incoherent is it in arrangement and expres-sion, that the alternately puzzled and amused reader is oftentempted to throw it aside. What, for instance, is he to makeof the following sentence on which he stumbles at the verythreshold-a sentence which stands the first in the book as

part of the dedication to Dr. Forbes Winslow :-" Pritheedo not bestow one mental vibration of your powerful sen-sorium that would imply censure on me for not solicitingyour indulgence in submitting to your dedication remarlisupon a subject which you have displayed such transcendanttalent and consummate skill in elucidating." Grotesque asthis exordium is, it hardly comes up to the majority of thesentences in the body of the book, which, to say nothing oftheir being generally ungrammatical, and often without amain verb, are out of all relation to the writer’s argument.

" What, sir, do you seek to maintain ?"-Dr. Johnson’s in-variablo demand of a muddle-headed interlocutor, is a

question which the reader will often find himself putting toDr. Smith. Nor is it only in the sequence and presentationof his exposition that Dr. Smith is frequently unintelligible.His facts or statistics are either antiquated or fallacious, orderived from untrustworthy sources. He puts, for in-

stance, the average brain weight of the German below theFrench; while he omits to mention that the English andAmerican are as nearly as possible equal. His historicalreferences and classical allusions are quite as loose. In-

deed, a more vulnerable book, or one more welcome to a

captious critic, it would be difficult to find.And yet, on the principle of Pliny, that no book is so bad

that good cannot be extracted from it. Dr. Smith has nota little to tell that, if not absolutely new, is placed in anovel and interesting light. His " psychometer" is notwithout ingenuity, giving as it does a carefully graduatedscale of the several forms of mental incapacity up to thepoint where the fabric and functions of the brain reach thestandard of health, and finally perfection. From the

acephalous monster, representing moral and intellectual

zero, we ascend through idiocy to the limit of legal re-

sponsibility ; thence through the deaf and dumb stage upto °° imperfect mental conception" and 11 normal capacity."Beyond this latter point we rise through the superior gradestill we reach the perfect combination of the analytic andsynthetic faculties, as is seen in a Plato, a Shakspeare, or aGoethe. In his handling of social subjects, Dr. Smith,though generally dithyrambic in expression, sometimes hitsthe mark-as, for example, in his references to the duty ofthe State in dealing with pauperism, and its consequence,lunacy. Scattered through his closely-printed pages, thereis material enough to make a tolerable pamphlet, if only hewould get some nominee of that School Board which hecontemns to revise the style, and, above all, to see that nosentence is without a main verb, or flows on after the mean-ing has stopped.

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The Principles and Practice of Veterinary Surgery. ByWILLIAM WILLIAMS, M.R.C.V.S., F.R.S.E., &c., Prin-

cipal of the Edinburgh Veterinary College, &c. Edin-

burgh : Maclachlan and Stewart. London : Simpkin,Marshall, and Co.MR. WILLIAMS has given to veterinary literature an instal-

ment of what promises to be a valuable work. The volumebefore us deals almost exclusively with surgery, and weobserve that diseases of the various internal organs are toform the subject of another book.Commencing with a description of the inflammatory

process and its results, our author carries us through thevarious diseases of bone and joint structures. The diseasesof the feet and different kinds of lameness are next ex-

haustively discussed. Classification of morbid growths isattempted for the first time, so far as we are aware, in

English veterinary literature, and the same thing may besaid of the diseases of the skin.

It is not to be expected that the whole of the matter isoriginal, indeed Professor Williams states that he hasavailed himself of many sources of information ; and hasincluded much matter relating to human pathology, quotingfrom the works of various pathologists, whose names areduly acknowledged.The illustrations are numerous, and generally remark-

ably well executed ; especially is this the case with the

photo -lithographs of diseased bone.We do not hesitate to commend the work to the notice

of the veterinary student, and it is not unreasonable to

suggest that the practitioner will find much refreshmentfor his memory in its pages.