Semmelweis : his Life and his Doctrine. By Sir William
J. Sinclair, M.D. (University of Manchester Press. 7s. 6d. net.)—Semmelweis's contribution to medical science was in the matter of puerperal fever. He was struck with the difference of mortality from this disease in the two divisions of the Obstetric Hospital at -Vienna—this was three times greater in one than in the other (nine per cent, to three per cent.)—and by various processes arrived at a discovery of the cause. This involved him in a fierce controversy—something of the same kind happened from a similar cause to Oliver Wendell Holmes—and the latter years of his life were seriously troubled. By a tragical coincidence, he himself died by one of the accidents, occurring in the operations of the dissecting-room, the -mischief of which he had done so much to discover. The book is meant, of course, for the medical public; but we could not but give a general notice of it.—From the same publishers we have Modern Problems in Psychiatry, by Ernesto Lugaro, Translated by David Orr, M.D., and R. G. Rowe, M.D. (7s. 6d. net). The subject may be briefly described as the connexion between physical conditions of the body and mental disease ; but the book is of too technical a kind to be dealt with here.
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