itself, which unfolds a tale quite worthy of being described, á la Ariosto, as

Cosa non detta mai in prosa, né in rima. It is quite sensational enough for cayennecraving curiosity; quite foolish enough to make you ashamed of being interested in it at all; and quite well enough told for such as have no occupation but that of killing Time until Time shall kill them—just as, in the stage direction, Laertes wounds Hamlet, and then, changing weapons, Hamlet wounds Laertes and does for him. Alas! Debemur morti nos nostraque, and yet we live as if earth contained no tomb, and libraries no other tomes than "the latest works of fiction."

Mr. Lever may write with ease, but he is certainly not one of the mob of gentlemen that do so, for his easy writing is by no means hard reading. Webster, according to Smith, was a steam-engine in breeches, and so is O'Malley, though of another sort. If the godlike Daniel had the power of a locomotive, the mundane Charley has its " 'go." How he flashes along with joke and epigram and satire and fun-with lots of smoke, to be sure, but with an occasional snort of sense that sounds deep even if it isn't! It is much more likely to be deep, however, than high, for Charles is decidedly of the earth, earthy. He may run as rapidly as an ostrich, sometimes even skim as vivaciously as a swallow, but he never attempts to play eaglesoaring with supreme dominion through the air. The Rent in a Cloud is not his last, though just reprinted by Messrs. Peterson, and neither is it his least. It will demolish a few hours as effectively as anything of its kind that has recently appeared.

The hero is as pretty a villain as ever fascinated romantic maiden, and is drowned in most tumultuous style in an Italian lake, with the exquisite expectation that a scornful young woman who rejected his love was being simultaneously swamped. Delightful is the description of that lake and the villa on its banks, where the scene is chiefly laid. A better advertisement thereof could hardly be desired by the proprietor. Tourists will surely take note of the spot, and wish to revel for a while in its blended loveliness of sky and water and land. A day, an hour, of such enchantment is worth a whole eternity of Wall street. Sitting beneath umbrageous festoons, "quaffing the pendent vintage as it grows," and gazing at snow-clad mountains

reflected in pellucid waves, with flowers of every scent and hue smiling blissfully around, who might not forget all the briers of the working world, and care never more about the price of stocks, the combinations of the "corner" and the harvests of the " ring," as materially golden as they are morally the reverse? What painful pleasures, to be sure, are those of Memory, delectable as they may have been to ancient Samuel (not the immortal lexicographer, or the immortaler coachman with his immortalest namesake and scion) sitting in that superlative snuggery of Mayfair and expecting Macaulay and Sydney, and perhaps Geoffrey Crayon, to breakfast! Oimé! a pathetic exclamation in choice Italian, which may be faithfully rendered into English by the mournful ejaculation, "Oh my!" whatever that may have originally been meant to mean. Not being full of sound and fury, it may signify much.

The foregoing works of regular novelwrights, which abundantly prove the truth of La Bruyère's assertion, that it is a trade to make a book just as it is to make a watch— c'est un métier de faire un livre comme de faire une pendule-are very different from the third production, of which the oracular title is given above. They are readable and comprehensible, at all events, but in all conscience the same cannot be said for Ten Times One is Ten. It is doubtless true that Dr. Johnson once told a blockhead who protested he couldn't understand one of his sesquipedalian effusions, that he gave him reasons, but couldn't give him understanding; and Mr. Edward E. Hale may perhaps be warranted in saying the same thing to the stupids who can't comprehend him, as he informs us that his volume was written at the instigation of his kind friend, the late Dr. Wayland, clarum et venerabile nomen. But the doctor's friendship would have been kinder if he had prepared an elucidation of the mysterious utterance. He might thus have rendered "the possible reformation" a probable one, which it never will be so long as it depends on the comprehension of this enigma, with which the book concludes: "Ten times one was ten, IO XI = 10. There was one zero; but as the nine zeroes were added, in twenty-seven years the I became 1,000,000,000- ONE THOUSAND MILLION. This proved to be the number of the Happy World!" What a Hale-storm of nothings! If one zero, according to M. Scribe, when

well placed, has great value, what must be the result of nine, situated-it might even be said, circumstanced-as they here are? Life is too short for the calculation: "Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam."

R. M. W.

By Lu

Adventures of a Young Naturalist.
cien Biart. Edited and adapted by Parker
Gilmore. New York: Harper & Brothers.
My Apingi Kingdom. By Paul du Chaillu.
New York: Harper & Brothers.

Books of adventure are no doubt among the healthiest reading which can be furnished to boys of an average capacity, and these two volumes, with their wealth of pictorial illustration, descriptions of strange scenes and narratives of hairbreadth 'scapes, are among the most attractive of their kind. They are not, however, to be classed with works that make a vivid or lasting impression on the youthful mind, or that enrich it with any real, substantial stores of knowledge. M. Biart makes few pretensions in this way, and the pretensions of M. du Chaillu are slightly offensive when contrasted with the amount of his performance. Nothing more impairs the charm of this species of writing than a too evident purpose to be striking or entertaining, although we may admit that it does not, like the naïve egotism and tedious minuteness of an earlier school of raconteurs, offer a decided obstacle to the reader's progress.

Books Received.

The Poets and Poetry of Europe, with Introductions and Biographical Notices. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. A New Edition. Revised and Enlarged. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates. Imperial 8vo. pp. xxviii., 916.

The Iron Age of Germany. Translated from the German of Franz Hoffman by Rebecca H. Schively. With a Historic Sketch of the Time by C. P. Krauth, D.D. Philadelphia: Lutheran Board of Publication. 16mo. pp. 236.

Our Poetical Favorites: A Selection from the Best Minor Poems of the English Language. By Asahel C. Kendrick, Professor in the University of Rochester. New York: Sheldon & Co. 12mo. pp. xvi., 449. In Duty Bound. By the author of "Mark Warren." Illustrated. New York: Harper & Brothers. Paper cover, 8vo. pp. 121.

On the Uses of Wines in Health and Disease. By Francis E. Anstie, M. D., F. R. C. P., Editor of the London Practitioner, assisted by the Editorial Staff: New York: J. S. Redfield. Pamphlet, 12mo. pp. 84.

Essays Written in the Intervals of Business. To which is added an Essay on Organization in Daily Life. By Arthur Helps. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 16mo. pp. 245. Field and Forest; or, The Fortunes of a Farmer. By Oliver Optic. With Fourteen Illustrations. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 16mo. pp. 288.

Plane and Plank; or, The Mishaps of a Mechanic. By Oliver Optic. With Fourteen Illustrations. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 16mo. pp. 315.

The Warden, and Barchester Towers. By Anthony Trollope. New York: Harper & Brothers. Paper cover, 8vo. pp. 244. Art in the Netherlands. By H. Taine. Translated by J. Durand. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 16mo. pp. 190.

The Dead Secret: A Novel. By Wilkie Collins. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers. 8vo., paper cover.

Piano and Musical Matter. By G. de la Motte. Boston: Lee & Shepard. Imperial 8vo. pp. vii., 122.

The Vivian Romance. By Mortimer Collins. New York: Harper & Brothers. Paper cover, 8vo. pp. 144.

Wilson's New Speller and Analyzer. By Marcus Wilson. New York: Harper & Brothers. 16mo. pp. 152.

Episodes and Lyric Pieces.

By Robert

Kelley Weeks. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 16mo. pp. vi., 164.

Illustrations to Goethe's Faust. Designed

by Paul Konewka. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Small folio.

Prudy Keeping House. By Sophie May. Illustrated. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 16mo. pp. 192.

Which is the Heroine? A Novel. New York: Harper & Brothers. Paper cover, 8vo. pp. 148.

Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book. Phila delphia: T. B. Peterson & Bros. 12mo. pp. 662. Going on a Mission. By Paul Cobden. Illustrated. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 16m0. PP. 354.

Who will Win? By Paul Cobden. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 16m0. pp. 303.

Charity Hurlburt. By C. C. Boston: Henry Hoyt. 16mo. pp. 390.

THE

HE medical profession has for its object the alleviation of the phys- | ical sufferings of the human race. At all times and in all places disease and death are doing their work among the populations, and everywhere the hand of the healer is outstretched to the bed of anguish. Not always wise perhaps, certainly not always successful, are such ministrations, for our knowledge of the laws of life, in health and in disease, is as yet very imperfect; but the science of Medicine is essentially progressive: with increasing knowledge comes more subtle skill, and the advances already made warrant hopefulness as to the future.

Under these circumstances it may fairly be regarded as one of the large compensations of human history that the periods of pestilence and war with which our race is scourged from time to time, serve generally to give a fresh impulse to the genius of those who have devoted themselves to medical pursuits, enabling them to make new discoveries, and to accumulate stores of knowledge which serve to increase their usefulness in ordinary times.

The unhappy struggle through which our own nation has recently passed has been no exception to this general rule. There can be no doubt that it has given

a great impetus to medical study in America, and this not merely in the direction of operative surgery and public hygiene, on which its effect has been perhaps most obvious, but in many collateral branches also, on some of which a favorable influence from this source could scarcely have been anticipated.

It would be foreign to the purpose of the present article to offer even an outline of this general movement. I propose simply to sketch a single institution, the Army Medical Museum at Washington-an establishment which is the obvious offspring of the war, and which will serve as an excellent illustration of the remarks just made.

The Army Medical Museum is situated on Tenth street, between E and F, where it occupies portions of a building, the rest of which accommodates a branch of the office of the surgeon - general. This building was formerly well known to the visitors of Washington as Ford's Theatre. It is a plain brick structure, three stories high, seventy-one feet front and one hundred and nine feet deep. At the rear of the north side of the main building is a small wing which accommodates some of the museum workshops; another wing at the front of the south side contains the chemical

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laboratory and the offices of the medical officers on duty. The whole establishment is devoid of any pretension to architectural beauty, and the exterior, being painted dark brown, has a rather gloomy aspect.

The upper story of the main building is the principal hall of the museum. It is well lighted by windows in front and in rear, and by a large central skylight, which has beneath it in each floor an oblong opening, through which the light falls into the apartments below. The numerous glass cases, for the accommodation of specimens, which cover all available wall space and stand out in long lines upon the floor, are most of them constructed in the plainest manner, with frames of pine wood painted white-for use, evidently, rather than for show.

The floors are of brick on iron arches, that in the museum hall being covered with encaustic tiles: the principal staircase is of iron, and the roof is covered with slate: this portion of the establishment may therefore be regarded as nearly fireproof. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the wings, for the protection of which a plentiful supply of hose is kept in readiness, and a steam force-pump is connected with the boiler of the steam-heating apparatus, for use in any emergency.

The first floor of the main building being nearly on a level with the street, the visitor who glances through the windows as he approaches the principal entrance is often struck with the number of busy clerks he sees seated at their desks or carrying record-books and papers about the room. This floor, however, has nothing to do with the muse

and miscellaneous papers, all systematically filed in such a manner as to permit ready access. To this branch of the surgeon-general's office the commissioner of pensions applies for official evidence of the cause of death or nature of disability in almost all pension cases before finally acting upon them. Similar information is also continually asked for by the adjutant-general of the army and other officials. Altogether, about two hundred thousand applications from these sources have been responded to since the war, and fresh cases are still received for investigation at the rate of about fifteen hundred a month. To facilitate these inquiries, the names of the dead, so far as ascertained, have been indexed in a series of alphabetical registers, which now contain very nearly three hundred thousand names. About two hundred thousand discharges for disability have been indexed in a similar series of registers.

The second floor of the building is chiefly occupied by the division comprising the surgical records of the surgeongeneral's office. Here are filed the reports made during the war with regard to the wounded and those who had undergone surgical operations, and from these a series of record-books have been compiled, in which are entered the histories of over two hundred thousand wounds and nearly forty thousand surgical operations. These have been arranged according to the nature of the wounds or operations; amputations of the thigh, for example, being entered in one set of books, amputations of the arm in another, and so forth. These books are therefore available for the preparation of the surgical history of the war. Meanwhile, they have done good service by preventing frauds in the matter of furnishing artificial limbs to disabled soldiers, for which large sums of money have been appropriated by Congress and ordered to be expended under the direction of the surgeongeneral.

Besides these two record offices, the building contains also the chemical laboratory of the surgeon-general's of

fice. This is situated on the first floor of the south wing, and is charged with the examination of alleged adulterations in medicines and hospital supplies, as well as many other investigations rendered necessary from time to time by questions which come before the surgeon-general. The laboratory has done good service both during the war and since, not merely in connection with matters pertaining strictly to the administration of the medical department, but also in a number of cases with regard to which other bureaus of the War Department have invoked the aid of the surgeon-general. The actual saving to the government resulting from the detection of attempted frauds in this laboratory has already been many times greater than the cost of carrying it on.

It has been thought proper to mention these divisions of the surgeon-general's office established in the same building, because visitors very often seem to have the impression that it is devoted to the purposes of the museum alone, and are therefore unable to understand the need for so many employés; most of whom, it will be seen, are rendered necessary by the pressure of practical business matters which have nothing whatever to do with the museum itself.

The collections of the museum are divided into six sections, as follows: I. The Surgical Section; II. The Medical Section; III. The Microscopical Section; IV. The Anatomical Section; V. The Section of Comparative Anatomy; VI. The Section of Miscellaneous Articles.

The surgical section consists at present of about six thousand specimens, of which the majority belong to the category of military surgery, though many other surgical subjects are already well illustrated. There are specimens exhibiting the effects of missiles of every variety on all parts of the body; specimens which show the different stages of the processes of repair, and the several morbid conditions which may interfere with their favorable termination; specimens derived from surgical operations of every character-calculi, tumors,

and the like. The osseous specimens are for the most part preserved dry, neatly cleaned, mounted on little black stands, that they may be handled without injuring them, and duly ticketed with their catalogue numbers. A considerable number of specimens, however, from their nature, require to be preserved as wet preparations: these have been neatly dissected, and are preserved with clear alcohol in glass jars similar to those used in the medical section.

There are also three hundred and fifty plaster casts representing the mutilations resulting from injuries and surgical operations. A series of over four hundred examples of missiles extracted from wounds, and showing the effects of the percussion upon the missiles themselves may also be mentioned. Latterly, a number of interesting preparations displaying the effects of arrow wounds and other injuries peculiar to Indian hostilities have been received.

To give any detailed description of such a collection is of course out of the question; yet it may be of interest to state that there are upon the shelves 211 specimens of fracture of the cranium, including 46 cases of trephining; 10 of depressed fracture of the inner table, without injury of the outer, a rare and interesting condition on which it would be out of place to comment here; and 22 specimens of wounds by sabres and other cutting weapons.

There are 59 examples of amputations at the shoulder-joint, 138 of amputations of the arm, and 56 of the forearm; 182 excisions of the shoulder-joint, and 173 other excisions at various points in the upper extremities.

The lower extremities furnish 14 amputations of the hip, 436 of the thigh, and 161 of the leg; with 25 excisions of the hip-joint, 9 of the knee-joint, and 56 other excisions at various points in the lower extremities.

A series of 225 fractures of the thigh in which conservative measures have been attempted must also receive notice; and special mention may be made of 86 sequestra, or portions of dead bone