CURRENT LITERATURE.
Annals of Chemical Medicine. Vol. I. By Dr. J. L. W. Thudichum. (Longmans.)—The defects of this new venture are so conspicuous, and its merits so recondite, that a brief general criticism can scarcely appear otherwise than unfair or misleading. The editor of this volume, and author of a large part of it, is so filled with the enthusiasm of original research, and so imbued with a sense of the importance and stability of his own hypotheses, that he has not been sufficiently careful to secure the experimental bases on which they are bunt. His hostile criticisms of other physiologists, his reiterated claims to. priority, and his worrying revisions of accepted chemical names, all these things lessen the value of the book here presented to Se scien- tific world, and render its study a by no means pleasant task. And yet this first instalment of the Annals of Chemical Medicine possesses some characteristics of real value to the physician, the physiologist, and the chemist. The author's aim is to advance our knowledge of " pathology, therapeutics, pharmacy, toxicology, and hygiene," and there is no doubt about his being right in assigning to chemical investigation a very high place amongst the aids to medicine and its allied sciences and arts. As far, then, as Dr. Thudichnm has given us here a aeries of resumAs of chemico-physiological researches other than his own, and as far as his original papers contain results and views sup- ported by repeated analyses of preparations of definite character and of ascertained purity, so far we are thankful for these Annals Of Chemical Medicine. The review of Nussbaum's "Guide to the Anti- septic Treatment of Wounds (pp. 309 to 314) is one of the briefest and simplest, yet most useful of all the papers in the volume. Other valuable papers are those on "Soluble Albumen" and on "Chitin," although the interest here is physiological and chemical, rather than
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