Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/728

This page has been validated.
708
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

paid. He points out the dangers that arise from the misapplication and abuse of the taxing power, and indicates the peculiar evils to which such abuses will lead under our form of government." The complaint for which the schemes in question are offered as a remedy is defined by the author as being that after all proper allowances are made the differences in the distribution of the comforts and enjoyments of life are excessive and unjust. The argument opposed to this idea recognizes the fact that socialism implies the surrender of the freedom of the laborer, with the expectation that it will be more than made up for by the increase of his compensation. Existing conditions and relations are then surveyed to find whether any substitute for the existing organization can be adopted that will work better. If not, "meddling will cause more injustice than it will remove." Besides the relations of individual employers and corporations and their employed, monopoly privileges, the partnership theory, the limitation of the rate of wages, and the nature of profits and the effects of reducing them are reviewed. Social improvement must come, ultimately, through the increase of integrity and honesty among men. Honesty will not be likely to increase when the principle of regard for property and respect for existing rights ceases to be cherished. Conscientious and cultivated men are warned of the responsibility that rests upon them. The movement toward the establishment of socialism will leave ineradicable traces in the shape of laws that can hardly be repealed, institutions that will be permanently mischievous, and debts that will burden children yet unborn. The greatest danger that threatens our republic lies in this tendency.


GENERAL NOTICES.

The authors of the Manual of Bacteriology[1] are both university lecturers; Mr. Muir on pathological bacteriology at Edinburgh, and Mr. Ritchie on pathology at Oxford. They explain that the science has become so extensive that in a book of this size the treatment must be restricted to some special departments, or it will be superficial. The present work being intended first for medical students and practitioners, they have considered in it only those bacteria associated with disease in man. The effort has been made to render the work of practical utility for beginners, and elementary details have been given in the accounts of the more important methods. The evidence of certain bacteria having serological relationships with corresponding diseases, the general laws governing their action as producers of disease and the effects of various modifying circumstances are considered. The subject is treated under the heads of general morphology and biology of bacteria, methods of cultivation, nonpathogenic micro-organisms, the production of toxines, suppuration and allied conditions, the relations of bacteria to disease, and, in detail, the more important diseases in which they have been proved to make their effects felt. In the appendix four diseases—smallpox, hydrophobia, malarial fever, and dysentery—are treated of, in two of which the causal organism is not a bacterium, while in the other two its nature is not yet determined.

Amid the countless impressions which crowd upon the brain, not only by every avenue of sense, but also in connection with organic action, it is not to be wondered at that a large number should escape our recognition. These are faithfully registered, however, no less than the ones to which we attend and in time form a background of memory, a Subconscious Self,[2] which may influence or


  1. Manual of Bacteriology. By Robert Muir and James Ritchie. With 108 Illustrations. Edinburgh and London: Young J. Pentland. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 519. Price, $3.25.
  2. The Subconscious Self and its Relation to Education and Health. By Louis Waldstein, M. D. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 171. Price, $1.25.