Claude Bernard. By Michael Foster. (T. Fisher IJnwin. 3s. 6d.)—In
this excellent little volume of the "Masters of Medicine Series," Sir Michael Foster pays his profound tribute of scientific respect to one of the most eminent of French physiologists. The book is dedicated to "the physiologists of France," and the author in his preface admits that his aim is to interpret Bernard's work as a scientist rather than to present a biographical sketch of the man himself. We think that Sir Michael Foster has succeeded in his aim, although at the same time we would point out that the practice of vivisection, of which Bernard was the most thoroughgoing pioneer and advocate, has been opposed, at least in this country, by those who can hardly be classed as feeble sentimentalists,—by such men, for instance, as the late Lord Tennyson and Mr. Lawson Tait, the famous Bir- mingham surgeon. With regard to the actual discoveries of Claude Bernard, and the various sets of researches by which they were achieved, Sir Michael Foster. as might be expected, proves himself a model expositor. The book is written in so plain and straightforward a style that any intelligent and fairly well-read man may follow even these technical chapters with the greatest ease. In fact, as a scientific monograph this little book is quite a model, though we fancy the general reader would_ have been grateful for more detail of Bernard's actual life, particularly in regard to his personal relations with Napoleon III., and his not too satisfactory home-life, where in his wife and daughters he seems to have met with bitter antagonists, especially in reference to his experiments on living animals.
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