Jones on Functional Nervous Disorders. Republished by H. C. Lea, Philadelphia. For sale by Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati.

The subjoined communication from a member of the profession who, though not now engaged in practice, was once for some years thus occupied as well as in medical teaching, so well presents the merits of this excellent work, that any editorial notice is rendered superfluous.

PROF. PARVIN.-Dear Sir: I am greatly obliged to you for a copy of Dr. C. H. Jones' Clinical Observations on Functional Nervous Disorders, and in compliance with your request, will give you my "opinion" of it. One who is in the habit of reading notices and reviews of the many and valuable contributions to medical science, almost daily coming from the press, might pass over this modest, unpretending little volume, and select instead several others for purchase, and be thereby much the loser. At the risk of being thought over enthusiastic in the expressions of my judgment as to its merits, I will say that it is a priceless work, supplying a need I have long felt, although I could have scarcely told what that need was till I read its table of contents. There may be some who will not so highly appreciate it. Their acquirements and skill may have been equal to the task of successfully meeting and placing "hors du combat" the whole brood of those enemies to physical and mental happiness, which are hatched by disturbance of the intricate functions. of the hidden, complex, and so little understood cerebro-spinal, and organic nervous system. I know, however, that there are some who have been often baffled in their treatment, puzzled, and not unfrequently driven to their "wits ends" to divine the causes of certain manifestations of those disorders, and decide upon proper treatment. To all such I will say purchase the book. I think I would hazard nothing in offering to refund the cost to those who, after reading chapter III. on Cerebral Anemia; IX. Cerebral Excitement; XIV. Headache; XVIII. Spasmodic Affections; XIX. Sleeplessness; XX. Facial Neuralgia; XXXIV. Cutaneous Neurosis; XXXV. Malarioid Disorder, could infer no advantage to themselves from a perusal of the remaining thirty-one chapters.

Could even the eight chapters named with the cases cited in illustration, be read by medical men generally, they would be spared the mortification of seeing so many of their patrons whom they had perhaps often carried successfully through acute diseases, difficulties or accidents requiring skill and science, leave them and resort to homœopathy, hydropathy, or various forms of quackery, or take useless and expensive journeys in quest of relief from spasmodic nervous affections, morbid sensibilities, fancies, watchfulness, paroxysmal headaches, cutaneous neurosis (often mistaken for prurigo or army itch, or other forms of cutaneous disease), and chronic disturbance of the brain. and nervous system, and their long catalogue of resulting complications with other organs, morbidly acting and reacting upon each other as the result of "malarioid disorder."

For this 600 pages Dr. Jones merits the lasting gratitude of the profession. Having been physician to St. Mary's hospital, where he had ample opportunity for research, with large experience in private practice, a wide range for clinical observation, (as shown by the record of many interesting cases), he has made each chapter to give abundant food for thought to the medical man who is in search of that aliment so requisite to his usefulness, and so well calculated to enhance his satisfaction with his own exertions in the province of his responsible calling. Will not others enter the list, and emulating this author's bright example, extend their explorations into the almost totally uncultivated field of zymotic diseases? Who is there in our profession that is not waiting with breathless anxiety for the time when analytic research and experiment, shall disclose the antidotes for the multitude of blood poisons, contagious and infectious, that now prove so prolific in suffering and death?

The London Medical Times and Gazette, for Dec. 29th, contains a long editorial review or retrospect of the more important medical events of the past year, from which we make the following extracts :

"As the last days of the year of grace, 1866, glide away, and the whole becomes a part of time past, we must, as is our wont at similar

periods, attempt to present our readers with a short summary of what have been to us as a Profession, its most notable events. It will probably in our memories be most remarkable for the victories won by preventive medicine or sanitary science. In its course have been included the acme and decline of the cattle plague epidemic, and the rise, progress, and termination of a visitation of epidemic cholera. In neither epidemic did the science and art of healing achieve any triumphs or marked success; but in both, the efforts to prevent the spread and progress of disease were signally successful.

"In the first week of the year the number of fresh cases of cattle plague was 9,120; and it continued steadily to increase till, in the week ending February 17th it amounted to 13,901. This was the highest point, and from this time the decrease was very rapid; in each of the two following weeks 3,000 fewer fresh cases were reported; the weekly decrease was about 2,000; then there was a less rapid, though steady, diminution till the disease all but disappeared.

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"Several more or less rational and irrational methods of treating rinderpest were proposed and tried, but not one obtained any encouraging degree of success. An old theory of the identity of the disease with small-pox was again put forth, and some eminent authorities strongly supported and urged the hypothesis that the two diseases are at least so closely allied that vaccination might prove to be as effectual a preventive against the one as it is against the other. It accordingly was tried most extensively and carefully, and at a great expense to the country, but the experiment resulted in total failure, and the idea ought never again to be entertained.

"It will be remembered that, in September and October last year, (1865), a few cases of cholera occurred in Southampton, and at Epping near London. Though the disease had heretofore always invaded our country through one of the eastern ports, yet it was feared that these cases would prove to be the autumnal mutterings which always precede a cholera storm in the year following, and every effort was made to rouse the authorities and the nation to a sense of the threatening danger. "About the middle of June these fears were verified by the occurrence of cases of cholera again in Southampton, though the disease did not spread much there till the beginning of July. On July 1st the disease also appeared in Liverpool, and on the 6th at Llanelly. In the first and second weeks of the same month three fatal cases occurred at Bromley in the London district. On the 10th a case was admitted into

the London Hospital, the patient being a woman who had come from Holland, where the disease was rife, on the 6th. On the 12th a rapidly fatal case was taken in from Stepney; on the 13th a third; on the 14th four cases from the neighborhood of the Ratcliffe-highway and the Commercial-road, and six on the 18th. On the 17th and 18th there were, also, two cases taken in at Guy's Hospital, one at St. Bartholomew's, one at the Westminster, and fatal cases were reported in private practice in the east and south of London. The Registrar-General's weekly returns for the metropolitan districts reported thirty-two deaths from cholera in the week ending July 14; in the next week they had risen to 346, of which 308 occurred in the "East districts;" and in the week ending July 28 they amounted to 901, 811 of which were in the same Eastern districts, and in the same week there were 349 deaths from diarrhea. *

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"The mortality was thus seen to be rapidly increasing and to be spreading rather more over the metropolis, while it had already attained a height that was not reached till two weeks later in 1849, and till four weeks later in 1854. It might then well have been feared that in this epidemic, cholera would prove a more terrible destroyer than it had ever yet been with us. But sanitary science fought against it as it had never fonght before. In every parish the Health officers were supported much better than in former epidemics, and the most active measures were taken to repel the invader. House-to-house visitation was energetically and efficiently carried out; cholera patients were removed to special hospitals, or special wards in general hospitals; disinfection of all drains and sewers, and of infected houses, bedding, and clothing, was rigorously insisted on; the still healthy were removed from infected houses; the water supply was looked to, and private charity came forward nobly to take care of the suffering, the destitute, and the convalescent. The Health officers were indefatigable in their labors, and the battle was well and gallantly fought, and with remarkable success. In the next week, the week ending August 11, the deaths from cholera had fallen from 1,053 to 781, those from diarrhea from 354 to 264, and the decrease continued to be rapid and steady till in the first week in September, the most fatal week in the two previous epidemics, the deaths from cholera were only 157, from diarrhea 132-in the same week in 1849 they had been 2,026, and in 1854, 2,050. From this time the decrease was never rapid, and in some weeks there was a slight increase; but in the return for the week ending December 1, the Registrar-General was able to say "only three deaths from cholera were registered during the week, and the epi

demic is now virtually extinct." In the same return we are told that "in the year 1849, when the population of London was about two millions and a quarter, cholera slew 14,137 people of all ages; in 1854 not less than 10,738 out of two millions and a half; and in the present year, when the population exceeds three millions, the deaths have been 5,548, of which 3,909 occurred in the East London districts, and 1,639 in the rest of the metropolis. The deaths to every 10,000 of the population were 62, 43 and 18, in the three epidemics, all over London." And this result has not been owing to any decrease in the fatality of the epidemic, for in other countries its ravages have been fearful. Thus, in Holland and Belgium, up to a recent date the mortality has been 141 to every 10,000 of the inhabitants. In Brussels the deaths have been in the proportion of 164, Utrecht 271, and in Amsterdam 42, in 10,000 inhabitants. Had the same proportion of inhabitants perished in London as in Holland and Belgium, "the deaths, instead of about 5,000, would have exceeded 42,000. Surely, we have a right to rejoice with gratitude in this result as a triumph of hygienic science, "before which the destroyer retreated step by step."

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"One of the most prominent and remarkable facts of the recent cholera epidemic was the severity with which it attacked the eastern districts of the metropolis. In the west districts the deaths were only 4 in every 10,000 of the inhabitants, in the North 6, in the South 8, in the Central 9, while in the East they were 64. Beginning in these East districts, it was in them alone that the ravages of the disease at all recalled the violence of former epidemics. An explanation of this has, of course, been anxiously sought for, and has apparently been found in the character of the water supply. Poverty and destitution, filthiness of every kind, drunkenness, and overcrowding exist to at least as great a degree in other parts of the metropolis, especially on the south side of the Thames, as in these unhappy East districts. One thing alone was found peculiar to them, and common to them all; they were all supplied by one water company-the East London-and those parts that suffered most severely were supplied from particular reservoirs of that company. Dr. Rygate, the medical officer of St. George's-in-theEast, has pointed out that on no day, except August 8, did the tale of deaths from cholera reach two figures in any other district than that supplied by the East London Water Works, while for seventeen consecutive days, in the district supplied by that company, the cholera. death-roll reached three figures, the number varying from 106 to 171 daily. It would make much too great a demand on our space to show here how the evidence against the water accumulated and strengthened, VOL. II.-No. 1.-4.