Diseases of Man: Data of their Nomenclature, Classification, and Genesis. By John W. S. Gouley, M. D. New York: J. H. Vail & Co. Pp. 412.
The author's purpose in preparing this book has been to urge the official adoption of a stable basis for the nomenclature and classification of disease; to advance some propositions that may contribute to that end; and to call attention to the improprieties evident in the present unsystematic nomenclature, with a view to enforcing the need of reform. The book is, in short, offered as "a plea for the more systematic study of diseases, and as an individual protest against their existing nomenclature and classification, with the hope that this protest will become general among teachers and others, who realize the necessity of bettering the condition of medicine, without undertaking to destroy its fabric in order to reconstruct it; but rather to modify, simplify, and improve it by gradually substituting exact terms for those which have never conveyed correct ideas." While it is easy to attach an exaggerated importance to mere names, it is evident that a philosophical nomenclature, based upon the real and ascertained principles of the science to which it is to be applied, is a great aid to the understanding of that science and to forwarding its advance. But the practical difficulty arises in every science, and every nomenclature, that names have to be found and used before it is possible correctly to determine the principles. In this fact, which is unavoidable, unless we would carry on our science without words, we find the origin of the anomalies in names—the wrong names and the unmeaning names—of which Dr. Gouley complains, and which he makes this effort to correct. He recognizes the nature of the evil, and, while anxious to find a remedy and apply it, does not overlook the importance of acting prudently upon the matter. Therefore he says: "Conservatism is praiseworthy when applied to words that have stood the test of years, and are still adjudged good and proper. Those time-honored terms which convey ideas with precision should be jealously preserved; but that multitude of misleading expressions, to be found in the literature of medicine, should be speedily blotted out of coming medical treatises and dictionaries, and their places filled with well-chosen and philologically correct words." True to the spirit thus exhibited, he does not so much suggest a new set of names, although that point is not overlooked, as he discusses the principles on which the classification of diseases and their nomenclature should be based. With the discussion are embodied reviews of the various systems of classification that have been introduced to the profession by its most eminent representatives of all ages, from Hippocrates down to Broca. The final conclusion is reached that any system of nosography, to be of utility to those whom it concerns, should be the result of the conjoint labors of the medical profession of all the civilized nations.
Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1885-'86. N. H. R. Dawson, Commissioner. Washington; Bureau of Education. Pp. 21 + 792.
This report has been prepared by N. H. R. Dawson, who was appointed commissioner soon after the close of the year which it covers. The new commissioner determined, after the completion of the report for 1884'85, which was still in hand, to concentrate the work of his force upon the preparation of the present volume, so that this and future reports might appear more promptly than previous issues have. The result has been that, while the preceding volume was distributed twenty-two months after the end of the year which it covers, the report for 1885-'86 has not been so long delayed by three months. This is a commendable change, for many of our Government reports lose much of their value by delay in preparing and publishing them. Mr. Dawson has also revised the plan of the reports, with a view of further facilitating prompt preparation and early printing of the document. The nature of the change is "to avoid repetitions, to omit unimportant items, to consolidate related but hitherto separated facts, and to unite the discussion of statistical conditions with the tabular statements wherein they appear." The appendices contain the usual statistics thus modified in form. Appendix I deals with State school systems. Its statistical tables are followed by a résumé of the general condition of public schools in the several States and Terri-
