Classical Treatise Research Articles

Some Epidemiological Observations on Foot-and-Mouth Disease, with Special Reference to the Recent Experience of Holland

In his classical treatise on Contagions, Hieronymus Fracastorious of Verona has the following passage: “I recollect a singular contagion of the year 1514 which affected only oxen; it first showed itself in the district of Frioli, then gradually extended to northern Italy and thence reached our country. At first the ox went off its feed without any obvious cause, but if the herdsmen looked into the mouth a certain roughness and small pustules were noted on the palate and the whole oral cavity. It was necessary at once to isolate the infected beast from the rest of the herd, otherwise all became affected. Gradually the disease descended to the shoulders and thence to the feet, and almost all the beasts in which this happened recovered, but when it did not, they usually died” (Fracastorii, pp. 63–4). Probably, as in the parallel case of influenza, a careful search of earlier literature might show that foot-and-mouth disease had played its part before 1514. It is sufficient for my present purpose to establish that it has been recognised, very much in its actual clinical form for more than 400 years.

Theory of Vibrating Systems and Sound

THE reader of Rayleigh's classical treatise on the theory of sound cannot hut feel that the subject is more of theoretical than of practical interest. It is true that the theoretical results have many illustrations in certain of their musical and technical aspects, but one does not feel that the theory has had much influence on the design work of the constructional engineer. In recent years, however, great progress has been made in applied acoustics, more especially in connexion with the problems of telegraphy, telephony, sound transmission and reproduction, and certain parts of the classical theory have been extensively employed to analyse and explain the problems and results that presented themselves in the technical developments of these subjects.

Mr. Sedley Taylor

THE long— life of Mr. Sedley Taylor, who died recently at the age of eighty-five years, nearly all of which were spent in public activities at Cambridge, was in many ways notable. Theology, mathematics, physical science, practical economics, and preeminently music, occupied his attention. His withdrawal from active theological pursuits (in 1863 he was ordained to a curacy near Birmingham) was not merely a personal event; it was also linked up with the movement for greater academic freedom at Cambridge. About the same time Henry Sidg-wick (1869) and Leslie Stephen (1862) gave up their fellowships. So early as 1862 appeared the first edition of Helmholtz's classical treatise on the sensations of tone. A translation into English, published by A. J. Ellis in 1875, increased its reaction in this country both on the physical theory of sound and on the aesthetic principles of music, which it for the first time brought into detailed, reasoned connection. Its influence was much forwarded by Sedley Taylor's book, “Sound and Music,” which appeared in 1873, and was the earliest general exposition in short compass by a writer competent on both sides of the subject. An event which his characteristic energy rendered prominent was his invention of an apparatus which he named the phoneidoscope. It consisted essentially of a resonant cavity, with an aperture over which a soap-film was stretched: when the operator sang to it a note nearly in unison with the cavity, the aerial vibrations revealed themselves visibly in whirling movement of the coloured striations of the liquid film.

A CONSIDERATION OF THE FACTORS IN THE MORTALITY OF APPENDICITIS

During the last four years I have had occasion to operate on a consecutive series of 545 appendix patients. Out of this number two were lost, making a mortality of about 0.3 per cent. The mortality rate is, I hope, sufficient justification for presenting the paper. Appendicitis is by far the most important acute abdominal lesion that surgeons are called on to treat. It is about eighteen years since Fitz, of Boston, gave to the medical profession his classical treatise on appendicitis; it would not be far wide of the mark to say that the birth of the recognition of this disease was in Fitz's paper. He taught us pathology, he taught us what the disease really was, and its scientific and rational treatment followed not only logically but of necessity. That 545 consecutive operations can be done by an ordinary man under ordinary conditions, with but two deaths, and

A Treatise on Linear Differential Equations

TREATISES on this subject have been somewhat numerous of late. We recently noticed in these columns an excellent, but fairly elementary work, “On Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations,” by Prof. Woolsey Johnson. The student who wishes to enter on the profitable perusal of the book before us must be well versed in all the ordinary modes of procedure,1 and then he will find that Dr. Craig is well qualified to lead him through the intricate windings of this difficult branch of mathematics. The advanced student will find the author's analyses of use to him whilst reading the various original memoirs here introduced to him, for the first time, in English. Some may remember that Mr. Forsyth, in his classical treatise, omitted the investigations of Fuchs, the recent researches of Hermite and Halphen, contented himself with a slight sketch of Jacobi's method for partial differential equations, and did not at all touch upon the methods of Cauchy, Lie, and Mayer. The consideration of these matters he reserved for a future volume.

A Text-Book of Political Economy

PROFESSOR WALKER'S “Text-Book,” for the most part an abridgment of the larger work published in 1883, deserves to be received with the highest commendation as supplying a much-felt want in English literature of the subject. An introductory treatment of so complex a study as political economy, written with due insight into the theoretical difficulties of the subject, and at the same time with adequate notice of the practical problems which these involve, can hardly be said to be given in any of the smaller manuals in current use in this country. The praiseworthy work of the late Prof. Fawcett, with its condensation by Mrs. Fawcett, kept on the whole too rigidly to the lines prescribed by Mill's classical treatise, and remained unaffected by many discussions which had shown the need of altering or amending the cardinal doctrines so forcibly stated by Mill. There is hardly any portion of the theory of political economy which has not received attention since the date of Mill's exposition, while the pressure of new practical problems has of itself been sufficient to render necessary some revision of the general theory. Prof. Walker, while retaining on the whole Mill's general conception of the limits and divisions of economical science, has incorporated many results of recent research, and has in addition so keen an eye for practical issues that his exposition, even when remaining within the lines of the older doctrine, gains peculiar freshness and interest.