HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD: By Henry C. Chapman, M. D. Octavo, pp. 56. P. Blakiston, Son & Co., Philadelphia, 1884. For sale by M. H. Dickinson.

This essay was delivered as a lecture at the Jefferson Medical College, Deember 10, 1883, concluding a course on the circulation, and constitutes, with but little modification, a chapter in a forthcoming work on Physiology by the author. It sets out with the statement that the discovery of the circulation was not made by Harvey alone, but that due credit must be given to Erasistratus, Galen, Servetus, Casalpinus, Malpighi, Aselli, Pecquett, Rudbeck, and Bartholinus, whose investigations extend over a period of 2,000 years, from the epoch of the Egyptian Ptolemies to the latter part of the 17th century. Harvey was doubtless the first who correctly described the course of the blood in making the entire circuit of the body, although the function of the capillaries in transferring the blood from the arteries to the veins was not discovered until after his death. To Malpighi is the honor of this important discovery due.

The story of the discovery of the circulation of the blood is told hastily, but accurately and attractively, from the days of the Greeks, who knew that the blood flowed in the veins, but supposed that the arteries, from their being found empty in post mortem examination, carried only air. Even Aristotle could only teach that the veins communicated with the heart, that vessels passed from the heart to the lungs and that the heart and veins were filled with blood.

Galen, who learned his anatomy in Egypt, was the first to demonstrate that the arteries as well as the veins carried blood, which was of course the golden link in the chain leading to the discovery of the circulation. Servetus was the first to point out the aëration of the blood carried to the lungs by the pulmonary artery. Several pages are devoted to an account of his life and discoveries.

Harvey in 1628 not only the first to describe the entire circulation correctly but also to give the first accurate account of the movements of the heart and of its auricles and ventricles. To Malpighi, in 1661, science is indebted for the discovery of the capillaries connecting the veins and arteries, thus completing the discovery of the complete circulation of the blood.

THE ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY: By Emile De Laveleye. 12mo., pp. 288. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. For sale by M. H. Dickinson, $1.50.

This work is designed by the author as a manual of instruction, and with that object in view he deviates from the usual course of writers upon the subject and comprises within his scheme, as correlatives, philosophy, moral science, the traditions of the past, history and geography. He says in explanation of this that "Geography describes the positions of Nations and History relates their annals. No advantage can be gained from the lessons which either offers without the aid of political economy. At the present day it is allowed that the most important part of history is that which traces the progress of humanity

in comfort and liberty. To understand this advance from prehistoric barbarism to the prodigious development of wealth which marks our own epoch, a knowledge of economy is indispensable." Carrying out this idea he quotes freely from recognized authorities, and with the enunciation of each principle of political economy he has given illustrative examples or maxims to enforce attention to it. In speaking of the importance of a knowledge of this subject he says, "As citizens of a free country we need the training of men. From our earliest years the state claims our attention; even in childhood political economy ought to make us see that freedom leads nations to prosperity, while despotism leads them to decay. Need more be urged to prove the necessity of spreading economic knowledge?" He then points out that the greater part of the evils from which societies suffer spring from their ignorance of this subject. National rivalries, restrictions on trade, wars of tariffs, improvidence of the working classes, antagonism between workmen and employers, over speculation, ill-directed charities, excessive and ill-assessed taxes, etc., all are indicated as so many causes of misery, springing from economic errors.

The treatise is the work of an able and experienced man, and while it may not in every particular apply directly to our national conditions, it will be found valuable, reliable and suggestive to all students of the general subject while the introduction and supplemental chapter by Prof. Taussig, of Harvard College, may be regarded as strictly applicable to our own country.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

The Sewerage of Kansas City, by Robt. Moore, C. E., with Discussion and Reply by O. Chanute, C. E., pp. 20. Notes on Glaciers in Alaska and Favorable Influence of Climate on Vegetation in Alaska, by Thomas Meehan, pp. 8. Notes on the Literature of Explosives, No. VI, by Prof. Chas E. Munroe, U. S. N. A., pp. 29. Quarterly Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, March 31, 1884, Wm. Sims, Secretary, pp. 94. Speech of General Wm. H. Powell at the Banquet of the Press Association of Southern Illinois, upon "Our Industries." St. Louis Druggist, April 26, 1884, weekly, $2.00. Second Annual Report of the Health Department of Kansas City for the calendar year 1883, by Dr. John Fee, pp. 60. Mound-Builders Works near Newark, Ohio, by Isaac Smucker, pp. 20. The Builder and Manufacturer, Pittsburgh, Pa., monthly, $2.00 per annum. Report of the Professor of Agriculture, Kansas State Agricultural College. Experiments, 1883, by Prof. E. M. Shelton, pp. 48. Random Notes, Volume I, No. 3, Southwick & Jencks, Providence, R. I. Fifteenth Annual Report of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, March, 1884, pp. 36. Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington, Vol. VI, for 1883, pp. 168. Methods of Historical Study, by Herbert B. Adams, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University, pp. 136. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, February, 1884, Vol. I, No. 5, pp. 40.

SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

A MISSOURI RIVER COMMISSION.

Mr. Clardy's favorable report on the Graves bill to create a Missouri River Improvement Commission is one of very great importance, and is substantially as follows:

The object of the bill is to establish a Missouri River Commission, composed of two officers of the Engineer Corps, one of the Coast and Geodetic survey and two civilians, to superintend the expenditure of money appropriated by Congress for the improvement of the navigation of the Missouri River, and to make the necessary investigations and study of that river for the purpose of devising the most effective and economical method of using the annual appropriations made for this water-way.

To properly appreciate the importance of legislation, whose object is the keeping in repair this national highway, it may be well to consider that this river has a length of over 3,000 miles, and has been navigated its entire length from its mouth to Fort Benton, in Montana.

The States of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and the Territories of Montana and Dakota, are drained by its waters, while Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico are to be considered as greatly interested in and affected by the commercial problems involved in the improvement of this river.

The census of 1880 shows that Kansas, Nebraska and Montana and such portions of Missouri, Iowa and Dakota as may be fairly embraced in the Missouri River Valley contain 260,000,000 acres, 3, 500,000 people, whose assessed wealth aggregates $1,250,000,000, of which $900,000,000 consist of landed property and the remainder is principally live stock, there being near 5,000,000 head of cattle, 1,500,000 horses, 4,700,000 hogs and over 2,000,000 head of sheep. It produced in 1879 over 60,000,000 bushels of wheat, over 400,000,000 bushels of corn, 53,000,000 bushels of oats, 1,800,000 bushels of rye, and 4,300,000 bushels of barley. During 1881, the Government collected in this district internal revenue alone amounting to $7,727,000. Could the census be shown for the year 1883 the foregoing estimates would be surprisingly magnified.

That this great water-way should be put in the best navigable condition is in accordance with the rules of political economy as well as common sense, it being located in a region so fertile and productive of all that administers to the wants of teeming millions. It is located where it is most needed and where it can perform the greatest service in the shape of transportation. With the great natural advantages possessed by this water-way it should be the main dependence for the bully freights of an agricultural valley. But it is the channel of commerce least

in use.
At first the railroads were considered merely tributary to the water lines;
but now the railroads have gained in prestige until the river has lost its commerce
and has become merely tributary to the railroads.

The people of this valley are beginning to appreciate the fact that it is a
costly luxury to ignore the plans of nature, and now, more than ever before,
they are considering the international features of this great river.

The language of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Daniel Ball, 10 Wallace, 557, fitly applies to this river. The court said: "Those rivers must be regarded as public, navigable rivers in law which are navigable in fact. And they are navigable in fact when they are susceptible of being used in their ordinary condition as highways for commerce over which trade and travel are or may be conducted in the customary modes of trade and travel on water. And they constitute navigable waters of the United States, within the meaning of the acts of Congress, in contradistinction to the navigable waters of the States, when they form in their ordinary condition, by themselves or by uniting with other waters, a continued highway over which commerce is or may be carried on with other States or foreign countries in the customary modes in which such commerce is conducted by water.

This is the legal aspect in which such rivers as the Missouri are viewed by our highest supreme judiciary.

The case is well presented in its scientific and economic aspect in the following extracts taken from the letter of the Secretary of War of February 17, 1881, "in relation to the improvement of the Missouri River," transmitting to the House of Representatives a report from Major Suter of the Engineer Corps, upon the improvement of this river, as follows:

"The importance of the subject can hardly be overestimated, as this river is the longest of any in the United States, and is with the exception of the Ohio, the largest tributary of the Mississippi. Its channel length from its sources in the Rocky Mountains to its junction with the Mississippi near St. Louis, is probably something over 3,000 miles, and it brings forward the drainage of an area of 572,672 square miles. It is navigable for nearly its whole length, for the portion above the Great Falls, near Fort Benton, is already provided with several small steamers. Its tributaries, though often of great length, are not of great size, and are rarely navigable in their present condition.

The country through which the Missouri flows is mostly one of a small rainfall, so that its really large discharge is due to the great area of its drainage basin and the mountain snows and ice near its headwaters. Its most salient and striking features are the remarkable impetuosity of its current, and its slope, which is considerable for so large a stream. The rapidity of the current and the general instability of its banks and bed give rise to the excessive turbidity of its waters, which have earned for it the title of the "Big Muddy." It is, in fact, the great silt-carrier of the country, and the enormous mass of sediment which it brings forward forms the great bulk of that received by the Mississippi from its tributaries. Its influence upon the main river is most marked; indeed it is its proto

type in its main physical features, and, from the navigation point of view, at least, it may be said to have a marked controlling effect upon the main trunk stream. The subject of its improvements, therefore, is not only of local interest, but is of the greatest general importance, now that the improvement of the Mississippi is receiving serious consideration."

"And upon page ten of said Report the following is found: "Work already done furnishes me the means of approximately estimating the cost of this improvement, which, if carried out on a large scale, and with liberal appropriations, will not probably exceed $10,000 per mile. This would put one cost for the whole 800 miles under consideration at $8,000,000, and from Kansas City to the mouth of the river at $3,750,000. See ex. document No. 92, third session, Forty-sixth congress.

The single state of New York has expended over $80,000,000 in the construction and improvement of 1,300 miles of canal within her borders. Whereas, by this report to the War Department the internal revenue collected for a single year from the district directly interested in the improvement of this river would defray the expenditure in making this national highway permanently navigable throughout its entire length, and one-half that amount would do the work from Kansas City to its mouth.

This report concludes with the following language :-
:-

"The benefits attendant on such an improvement can hardly be over-estimated. With a guarantee that at lowest navigable stages a safe and permanent channel, having nowhere a less depth than twelve feet, will be available, boats and barges as large as any now used on the Lower Mississippi could be built and safely navigated. They could also be provided with heavy power and staunch hulls, such as would be needed to cope with the strong current of the Missouri River. Snags, which now are great and ever-present obstructions, would be to a great extent swept away by the deep scour of floods, and the supply of new ones would be materially reduced by the general prevention of bank erosion. The amount of sediment carried into the Missouri would be proportionately reduced by the same work, and very substantial benefit be thus directly received by that river. The whole valley of the Missouri is extremely fertile, and if reclaimed, as it would be by this improvement, would soon be all under cultivation, and the amount of grain which would seek the river transportation would be enormous. The estimate for the whole work thus sketched out is $8,000,000, which could, with due regard to economy, be expended at the rate of $1,000,ooo per annum. At this rate the whole improvement would require eight years for completion, or from Kansas City to the mouth four years, with proportionate increase of time if the annual appropriations should be smaller than here indicated."

For the ensuing fiscal year the Secretary of War submits the following estimate to be appropriated :

For the improvement of the navigation of the Missouri River, $1,400,000;