.Deafness Practically illustrated. By James Yearsley, M.D., &c. (Chur bill
and Sons.)—Mr. Yearsley is well known as the principal
advocate of what may be called the surgical, as opposed to the medical, treatment of deafness. He has no hesitation in having resource to a surgical operation in cases where many other practitioners would prefer to rely upon the slower and (as is commonly supposed) less hazardous action of drags. No doubt there is much to be said for Mr. Yearsley's system ; and we feel quite sure that it deserves more efficient advocacy
than it receives at his hands. Unfortunately, he cannot help looking upon those practitioners who do not follow his system as his personal antagonists ; and consequently, he allows himself, when speaking of them, to indulge in a spirit of pugnacity and personality which we are not accustomed to regard as at all a desirable qualification in a medical man. Nor are we able to identify the precise point of aural surgery elucidated by the information which Mr. Yearsley gives us, apropos of the statement that the nasal passages of Lord William Russell were extremely contracted, and that he witnessed the last moments of that nobleman's murderer, "Mr. Charles Kean and himself being the only non-officials admitted by the sheriff into the condemned cell." It is a great pity that Mr. Yearsley's book should have been written in a spirit which cannot fail materially to detract from the value of the many sound observations which it undoubtedly contains.
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