28 JANUARY 1888, Page 42

Euthanasia. By William Munk, M.D. (Longmans.)—The subject of this essay

must not be confounded with that of an article published (in the Fortnightly Review, if we remember right) some years ago, in which the arguments for hastening a manifestly inevitable end were advanced. Dr. Munk does not venture on any so perilous a subject. The scope of his little treatise may be best seen from the titles given to the three chapters into which it is divided. These are, "On Some of the Phenomena of Dying," "On the Symptoms and Modes of Dying," "On the General and Medical Management of the Dying." He owns special obligations to various observations of Sir Henry Halford. To discuss the subject in detail would be to go beyond our subject, but we may quote a saying of the eminent Heberden,—" In impetn doloris ubi venerit, opium eat unicum remedium." It is a cordial, too, as well as an anodyne.