IS° REVIEWS.

Pure Milk and Public Health: A Manual of Milk and Dairy Inspection. By Archibald Robinson Ward, B.S.A., D.V.M., Assistant Professor of Bacteriology and Director of the State Hygienic Laboratory, University of California. Ithaca, N.V.: Taylor & Carpenter, 1909.

THE publication of this work may be said to be opportune, since it coincides with a period of increasing general and professional interest in the hygiene of milk production and distribution. It extends to 194 pages, contains seventeen illustrations, and is divided into eleven chapters, which treat respectively of milk contamination during milking and transit, changes induced in milk by bacteria, epidemic diseases transmitted by milk, bovine tuberculosis and other cattle diseases, municipal sanitary control of milk, pasteurisation of milk, microscopic tests applied to milk, bacteriological examination, certified milk, milk analysis, and adulteration of milk.

As is natural, tuberculosis and tuberculous milk receive a large share of attention, and in this part of the work the author expresses some views which will not command general assent. It is stated, for example, that physical ex­amination of the cows will reveal but a small percentage of the cows capable of disseminating infection. If, as would appear from the context, this means that inspection of the live animals is of little value as a means of reducing the danger to human beings through the use of milk containing tubercle bacilli, it appears to be contrary to a good deal of evidence. It would pro­bably be more correct to say that a thorough physical examination of the cows, repeated at short intervals, and coupled with the prompt elimination of every animal exhibiting any symptom of tuberculosis, would reduce the danger now existing in uninspected herds by 90 per cent.

It is also not possible to agree with the author when he says that" the development of tuberculosis in the udder to a degree that would attract attention is rare," at least as regards the occurrence of tuberculous mastitis in Great Britain, as is sufficiently attested by the fact that during the past year the London County Council's Veterinary Inspector detected this condi­tion in seventy-four cows out of a total of 2029 examined by him on sixty-two farms (3'6 per cent.).

Attention is not called to these points with the desire to disparage Dr Ward's book, which has many merits, and can be strongly recommended as a useful gUIde to those who are specially interested in what may be called milk hygiene.

Veterinary Surgery. Vol. IlL-Veterinary Surgical Operations. By Louis A. Merillat, V.S., Professor of Surgery in the Chicago Veterinary College, etc. Chicago: AleJ<ander Egen, 1909.

IN the preface the author of this work states that his object has been to explain in a plain manner all a student or practitioner desires to know about the veterinary surgical operations which have been tried and found useful. It was a not unambitious task, but the author may fairly claim to have accomplished it. Every important veterinary operation is described, and also a few that cannot by any stretch be called important. The volume extend, to a little over 500 pages, and there are 258 illustrations, most of which are valuable aids to the verbal descriptions of the various operations.

English, as opposed to American, readers of the work are likely to find in it a good many examples of "language in the making," and it must regret-