because it draws attention to the advantages of the electrostatic machine for x ray work. In England the excitation of x ray tubes by electrical machines seems to have been tried and abandoned, the probable reason being that good machines are extremely uncommon in this country. Theoretically, an apparatus capable of supplying a steady electro-motive force high enough to excite the tubes should present advantages over the intermittent current of the induction coil, and practically it is so. With

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... a good Wimshurst machine there is a brilliant illumination of the phosphorescent screen far superior to the flickering light given by a coil, and time is saved in exposures of photographic plates. Dr. Monell claims to have procured with five minutes' exposure results as good as could have been obtained in half an hour with coils. He writes with confidence and is evidently an experienced worker with the x rays. A machine with twelve 36 in. plates is the size which he finds best, and though his work was done with a Holtz machine (the type most used in the States), the Wimshurst machine is certainly as good and probably is better for the purpose. Turning now to his account of the therapeutic uses of electrostatic treatment, we find much which is calculated to afford food for thought. In England the statical machine has not yet been seriously taken up, but it is evident that Dr. Monell finds in statical treatment a most valuable agent for the relief of rheumatic and other painful states, such as neuralgia and sciatica; also in neurasthenia and in melancholia and other morbid mental conditions, where he finds it to have a general tonic effect which is productive of good. The style of the book is spirited and practical ; it supplies a want, and should lead to a further study of electrostatic methods in this country. LIBRARY TABLE. Society, Memorial Hall, Farringdon. street, E.C. 1897. Pp. 62. Price 6d.-The principal question discussed in this little book relates to the trustworthiness of official inspection as a means of recognising tuberculous meat. The author concludes that a large proportion of the carcasses which are passed by the inspectors are nevertheless sufficiently infected with tubercle to be dangerous to the consumer, and that the system is almost worse than useless, for it deludes the public into relying on a security which is nonexistent. He points out that the ordinary cooking of meat i does not necessarily destroy the tubercle bacillus and its spores, and he advocates vegetarianism as a complete solution of the difficulty. At the same time he recommends a much more careful and thorough examination of meat than is at present enforced, together with compensation to butchers who find that the animals which they have bought are diseased.