remarkable teacher has been misunderstood by the majority of those who have criticised his opinions, or supposed opinions. Here is a sentence, for instance, of M. Ferrand’s, which is nearly as incorrect as it is possible for a sentence to be—“Alcohol, for instance, is ... stimulant and resolvent in small doses; but in larger and more continued doses it becomes antipyretic.” That is precisely what alcohol does not do. Given in large doses (relatively to the needs of the organism), it becomes eminently pyretic. It need not always raise the temperature of those parts to which we apply the thermometer; but, assuredly, given in such doses as produce phenomena of intoxication, it does most directly increase and give a mischievous impulse to the destructive processes going on in the organism. We have no wish, however, to leave an unfavourable impression of M. Ferrand’s very able pamphlet on our readers’ minds. On the contrary, we refer them with confidence to the work as a repository of a large amount of accurate and careful thought and observation on the nature and the remedies of the pyrexial state. _A Practical Treatise on Perimetritis and Parametritis._ By J. MATTHEWS DUNCAN. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black. 1869. Though we have nothing to do with the pathology of this work, it may be as well to explain the meaning of the terms employed in the title, so that the value of the author’s therapeutics may be the better understood. Objecting to such expressions as pelvic cellulitis and inflammation of the uterine appendages, Dr. Duncan adopts in part the phraseology of Virchow, and employs the words perimetritis and parametritis, the former to signify inflammation of the uterine peritoneum, and the latter to imply inflammation of the cellular tissue in connexion with the uterus. With the justification of such a terminology we need not concern ourselves, but we may express a regret that so much of the author’s observations are confined to the natural history of these affections, and so little to the all-important problem of treatment. In a work extending over nearly 250 pages, one expects to find therapeutics represented by a greater space than that included in about a sheet of printed matter. Our disappointment, too, is enhanced when we find the author, in many instances, limiting himself to the vaguest of generalities, and, while sceptical as to opinions which do not coincide with his own ideas, credulous to a high degree on some points of traditional medicine. The only methods of treatment on which Dr. Duncan at all dwells are those of leeching and poulticing—save that, in a few words on internal remedies, he urges the use of mercury to produce slight salivation, and rejects, what many think so valuable, the employment of opium. He is strong on the subject of poulticing, and his statements are in accordance both with practical experience and _à priori_ reasoning. He impresses seriously on his readers the importance,