Theory and Practice of Infant Feeding (The). The increasing importance of the subject of artificial infant feeding makes the appearance of this volume indeed timely. Instead of laying down rules for preparing food for infants of different ages, the book shows rather the fundamental principles of growth, nutrition, and digestion during infancy. More particularly it shows that growth is a process of cell-division; it classifies food into protein, fat, carbo-hydrates, mineral matter, and water; it compares digestion and absorption in different animals, and then compares the milk of these animals, indicating chemical and physiological differences. As the author says, the discovery that the law of the conservation of energy applies to animal life has made the nutrition of adults almost an exact science, but in infant feeding there are other problems than mere nutrition to be considered. For the first time in any book, so far as we know, the special function of milk in developing the digestive tract of the young animal is discussed. The sections on raw food-materials and on methods of practical feeding are treated with welcome detail. The illustrations seem well done and the bibliographical list is one of distinct value. Toscanelli and Columbus. By Henry Vi gnaud. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. 51⁄2×9 in. 365 pages. $3, net. Last autumn The Outlook expressed the hope that Mr. Henry Vignaud would translate his book on "Toscanelli and Columbus" into English. He had written this work in his native tongue, French, but his long familiarity with English-speaking people (for many years he has been First Secretary of the American Legation at Paris) would make it easy for him to translate a treatise which had already excited much comment among Americanists. We are glad now to chronicle the appearance of the work in its English dress, and to note that it is a particularly commendable specimen of the bookmaker's art, the paper being soft yet parchment-like, and the print delight fully distinct. The present edition includes several chapters which do not appear in the one published last year in Paris. The additional matter has to do largely with the personal rôle of Columbus in the particular subject which M. Vignaud seeks to investigate. The work as a whole is a critical study of the motives which led Columbus to undertake his first voyage, in 1492. Mr. Vignaud pronounces against the often accepted view that a letter from Toscanelli, the Florentine geographer, encouraged Columbus in this enterprise, and declares a belief in the as often discredited tale that the discoverer received his information from a pilot who, with his crew of seventeen sailors, was blown to sea by a gale which continued unabated for a month; finally they arrived at an unknown island, the natives of which were naked. After taking in supplies, -the pilot again set sail, and after a prolonged voyage, during which most of the crew died, reached Madeira, where Columbus gave him refuge. In token of gratitude the pilot revealed to Columbus the course to be steered in order to reach the island. The other story, that Columbus received his information in a letter from Toscanelli, has been believed because in a volume once belonging to Columbus himself was found the letter, not in Toscanelli's handwriting, but in that of Columbus, so it has been thought. It has been supposed that, on the strength of this information as to the possibility of a short route to India by a westward passage, Columbus undertook his voyage. While the geographical ideas of Columbus are identical with those expressed in Toscanelli's letter, M. Vignaud believes that a fraud forger, probably Batholomew Columbus, who was practiced upon the discoverer by some was very devoted to his elder brother. It would seem that Bartholomew had received a better education than Christopher, and that Las Casas, a good man in some things but with obliquity of vision in others, was complicated in the deceit, undoubtedly devised for the purpose of exalting Christopher's merit. M. Vignaud does not believe that Columbus was ignorant of the fraud, and says that he was not entirely blameless in the matter. Not only did he allow it to be believed, he even took trouble to have it believed, that his discovery was the result of a laborious working out of a scientific conception, whereas in fact, claims M. Vignaud, it was solely due to material and practical information secretly obtained from another. M. Vignaud's work is a signal example of a book at once prodigiously erudite and unmistakably popular for where is the school-boy who has did, "of the cause which determined the not queried, as the companions of Columbus navigator to undertake the discovery of the Indies"? Truth of Christianity (The). Compiled by Major W. H. Turton. (Fourth Edition.) The Young Churchman Co., Milwaukee. 5x71⁄2 in. 538 pages. $1.25, net. The eclectic character of this book is very obvious without the frank avowal of the author that he has simply collected arguments for the truth of the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds as he has found them in the course of his readings and conversations. He objects to the documentary hypothesis of the critics of the Pentateuch and calls it a patchwork theory; but he has himself adopted for the writing of his own book a patchwork method beside which the work of the Pentateuchal redactor is simple. At one place, for instance, the author is evidently making a selection from the most modern theists of the highest type, at another place he uses the work of writers whose trinitarianism is of the crudest and most polytheistic sort. To point out all the inconsistencies of this book would require another of equal size, or a polychrome edition of the book itself. The lay reader will find the style clear and untechnical, and the spirit of the author always good-tempered. In spite of its inconsistencies, the merits of the book are many; it is a first-rate scrap-book on the subject of Christian doctrines. The Coal Miners' Strike. Political The Crisis in Finland. By Herman The Tombs Angel. By Arthur Henry. Negro Conditions Sensibly Discussed. Christianity the Universal Religion For full Table of Contents see second page before reading matter. |