in the Charleston College. His account of his early struggles for
an education (for though born of a well-to-do family, money was not
over plenty in his father’s home), is very entertaining, and the
anecdotes of his juvenile life among a people full of idiosyncracies,
are marked by humor and point. His medical education was completed at
Jefferson College, Philadelphia, an institution which, ranking very
high to-day, had no rival in the country half a century since. It is
to be observed that Dr. Sims has a very graphic and simple method
of telling his story, showing a genuine mastery of the fundamental
idea of good writing, though he is always without pretence, and takes
occasion from time to time to deplore his own faults as a literary
worker. Yet no contributions to medical literature, aside from their
intrinsic value have been more admired than his for their simple, clear
force, and luminous treatment. After practising for several years
as a country doctor, our great embryo surgeon moved to the city of
Montgomery and began to devote himself more exclusively to operative
surgery, the branch in which his talents so palpably ran. It was at
Montgomery that he became specially interested in women’s diseases, and
began to experiment on methods of treating one of the most loathsome
and hitherto incurable diseases, which afflict woman, vesico-vaginal
fistula, a trouble so often produced by childbirth. Dr. Sims practised
on slave women, and turned his house and yard into a veritable
hospital, spending a large part of his income in his enthusiastic
devotion to the great discovery on the track of which he was moving.
At last, he perfected the method of the operation, and made peculiar
instruments for it. What had been impossible, he now performed with
almost unerring certainty, and rarely lost a case. This became
heralded abroad, and the name of Dr. Sims was discussed in New York
and Philadelphia, as one who had made one of the most extraordinary
discoveries in operative surgery.
His own health had been bad for years; and, as a Southern climate did
not agree with him, he went to New York to live in 1852. Though at
first he had a hard struggle, he fought his way with the same rugged
pertinacity which he had previously shown. He was assailed with the
bitterest professional jealousies, but, nothing daunted him, and he
finally succeeded in founding his woman’s hospital, through the help
of the wealthy and generous women of New York. His great discovery was
attempted to be stolen from him by his envious rivals, but he had no
trouble in establishing his right to the glory. He overbore all the
opposition made against him, and settled his own reputation as one of
the greatest surgeons of this or any age. In 1861, when the war broke
out, Dr. Sims, who was strong in his secession sympathies, determined
to take his family to Europe, so bitter was the feeling against him in
New York. He went to Paris, and in a very short time his remarkable and
original method of treating vesico-vaginal fistula, by means of silver
sutures, gave him a European reputation, and honors were showered on
him from all sides. The great surgeons of Europe freely credited him
with the glory of having struck out an entirely new and splendid path
in surgery, and his operations in the leading hospitals of Paris,
London, Brussels and Berlin, were always brilliant ovations, always
attended by the most prominent men in the profession, and a swarm
of enthusiastic students. He also secured a very lucrative private
practice, and performed cures which were heralded as phenomenal in
medical books and journals. At different times he was the physician
of the Empress of the French, of the Queen of England, and of other
royal and distinguished personages. Patients came to him from the most
distant quarters, and though a large portion of his time was given to
hospital practice, his fees were very large and lucrative. His fame
was now established on a secure basis, and the greatest men in Europe
freely acknowledged in Dr. Sims their peer. Though the most seductive
offers were made to him, to settle permanently both in London and
Paris, his heart was among his own countrymen. So at the close of the
war he returned to New York. His most important work thenceforward was
in connection with the Woman’s Hospital, though he treated innumerable
private cases among the wealthy classes. The memoir proper ends with
his Parisian career, and the rest of Dr. Sims’s life is told in the
preface. He died in 1883, and so indomitable was his professional
devotion, that he took notes and memoranda of his own disease up to a
brief period before death. The life of Dr. Sims, while interesting to
the general reader, will be found peculiarly valuable and attractive by
professional men. A large portion of the book is given to a detailed
description of the various steps which he took in experimenting on
vesico-vaginal fistula, and of the difficulties which he so patiently
and at last so triumphantly surmounted. In addition to his professional
greatness, Dr. Sims was greatly beloved for the virtues of his private
life. He was in the latter years a most sincere and devout Christian,
and succeeded in avoiding that taint of scepticism, which so often
shows itself in the medical fraternity.
OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF THE MEN AND
WOMEN MOST EMINENT IN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY,
PHILANTHROPY, ART, ETC.
Edited by Samuel Adams Drake,
Author of “New England Legends and Folk-Lore,”
etc. With Nearly One Hundred Portraits Emblematically
Embellished.
Boston: _Roberts Brothers_.
This volume of something over five hundred pages, is very briefly, but
yet truthfully, summed up in its title. The biographies are short and
well written, and the author knows how to be graphic and picturesque
without being in the least diffuse. He has selected the great leading
personages in the arts of peace, who have exemplified human progress
among the English speaking races, and given short sketches of them
in chronological order. Boys will be specially interested in such a
volume, and find in it both amusement and benefit. History has been
defined as “philosophy teaching by example.” If this is the case with
history, it is still more true of biography, for the concrete flesh
and blood facts are brought much nearer home to the imagination than
can be possible in history. The sketches vary from five to fifteen
pages long, and are completely given, omitting no essential fact in the
career, or essential trait in the character of those treated. The book
is beautifully embellished with portraits.
LIFE OF MARY WOOLSTONECRAFT.
By Elizabeth Robins Pennell.
Boston: _Roberts Brothers_.
This last volume in the “Famous Women” Series is one of much interest.
The wife of William Godwin (the author of “Political Justice,” “Caleb
Williams,” “St. Leon,” and other books distinguished in their day)
and the mother of the wife of the poet Shelley, her life was one of
singular intellectual significance and full of pathetic personal
romance. Mary Woolstonecraft was born and bred under conditions which
fostered great mental and moral independence. She chafed under the
restraints of her sex, and was one of the first to embody in her
life and theories that protest against the position of comparative
inequality in her sex, which has of recent years been the battle-cry
of a very considerable body of both men and women. It is only just to
say, however, that very few of her successors have carried the doctrine
of personal rights so far as she did; for it is a fact beyond dispute
that she lived openly as the mistress of two men successively, Gilbert
Imlay an American, and William Godwin. The latter she married only
to legalize the birth of the child which she expected soon to bring
into the world, and whose birth was at the price of the mother’s life.
While her social errors are to be deplored, even those most downright
in condemning such departures from the established order of things,
when they look into all the circumstances of her life are disposed
to palliate them. Certainly it must be admitted that, in spite of
her deviation from that path which society so rigidly and properly
exacts from woman, Mary Woolstonecraft was a person of singularly
noble and pure instincts. We cannot go into the full explanation of
this paradox, and only hope that many will read the full account of
her life, if for no other reason, to find an illustration of the fact
that a sinner may sometimes be as noble and upright as the saint, and
that doctrinarianism in morals as well as in politics, finds many
an exception to the truth of its logic. Mary Woolstonecraft worked
enthusiastically for the elevation of her sex, nor did she ever seek
to enforce as a rule to be followed, that freedom of action which she
conceived to be justified by her own case. The earlier part of her life
was singularly stormy and tragic, and when her lover, Imlay, whom she
looked on as her husband, deserted her, she attempted to commit
suicide. When, at last, she met Godwin, her spirit had recovered from
the shock she had received, she was recognized as an intellectual force
in England, and her society was sought for and valued by many of the
worthiest and most distinguished people in England. Her connection
with Godwin, which was finally consecrated by marriage, was one of
great personal and intellectual happiness. Her labors for the rights
of woman, her fine appeals for national education, and her many
tractates on not a few social, political, and moral questions, are
marked by acuteness, breadth, and eloquence of statement. The author,
Mrs. Pennell, has performed her labor with a nice and discriminating
touch. While she does not pass lightly over the errors of her heroine,
she recognizes what was peculiar in her position, and how a woman of
her views could deliberately act in such a manner without essentially
falling from her high pedestal as a pure woman. The author has given
the world an interesting book not unworthy of the series, and one that
happily illustrates the fact that two and two may make five and not
four, though it would not do for the world to figure out its arithmetic
on this principle.
PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. By John Stuart Mill.
Arranged with Critical, Bibliographical and
Explanatory Notes, and A Sketch of the History of
Political Economy, by J. Laurence McLaughlin, Ph.D.,
Ass’t. Professor of Political Economy in Harvard
University. A Text-Book for Colleges.
New York: _D. Appleton & Co._
The views of John Stuart Mill, one of the clearest and strongest
thinkers on this and kindred subjects, of our century, on political
economy, have been so often discussed in all manner of forms, from
elaborate disquisitions to newspaper articles, that it is not
needed now to enter into any explanation of the differences which
distinguished him from the rest of his brother philosophers. The object
of the present edition is to add to the body of Mill’s opinion the
results of later thinking, which do not militate against his views;
with such illustrations as fit the Mill system better for American
students, by turning their attention to the facts peculiar to this
country. Mill’s two volumes have been abridged into one, and while
their lucidity is not impaired, the system is put into a much more
compact and readable form, care being taken to avoid technicality and
abstractness. Prof. McLaughlin’s own notes and additions (inserted
into the body of the text in smaller type) are printed in smaller type
so as to be readily distinguished. This compact arrangement of Mill’s
economical philosophy will attract many readers, who were frightened by
the large and complete edition.
A REVIEW OF THE HOLY BIBLE. CONTAINING THE OLD AND
NEW TESTAMENTS. By Edward B. Latch.
Philadelphia: _J. B. Lippincott & Co._
Whether this work will be regarded as throwing any light on the sacred
Scriptures, depends on the credulity of the reader, and his pious
sympathies. After a casual perusal of the work, it is difficult to
see any good end it serves, except so far as all exegetical comment
may be of value. The number of such books is already legion, and
their multiplication is a weariness to the flesh. The comments made
by Mr. Leach, whom we judge by implication to be a layman, are such
as any good orthodox preacher might make from his pulpit or in the
prayer-meeting room. While they are not distinguished by any noticeable
freshness and originality, they are soundly stated, accurate orthodoxy.
We fancy that many a poor pious soul in the depths of country
farm-houses will get spiritual refreshment, and certainly she will not
be likely to find much to clash with her prejudices.
THE YOUNG FOLKS’ JOSEPHUS. THE ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS
AND THE JEWISH WARS. Simplified by William Shepard.
Philadelphia: _J. B. Lippincott & Co._
Every year sees more of that sort of emasculation of standard
historians, annalists and others, adapted to make their matter not
only cleanly, but easily within the childish grasp. While there are
many reasons to deplore the necessity of doing this on the same
principle that one hates to see any noble work mutilated even of its
faults, there is enough advantage to justify it perhaps. The author
has simplified and condensed the history of the Jews by their great
annalist with taste and good judgment, by no means as easy a task as
it looks. We get all the stories of a special interest very neatly
told, properly arranged in chronological order, and put in sufficiently
simple language to meet the intelligence of youngsters. The work
is handsomely illustrated, beautifully printed, and altogether a
creditable piece of typography and binding. It will make a nice holiday
book for reading boys and girls, and we fancy that this is the special
reason for its being.
FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.
Japanese newspaper enterprise is making rapid progress. It is stated
that no less than three vernacular newspapers published at Tokio and
one at Kobe have sent special correspondents to report the events of
the war in China.
* * * * *
From various quarters of the world reports are received of the
operations of the Society for Propagating the French Language, which
receives the full support of the Government and officials of the
Republic. It is doing its work in some places where English would
be expected to be maintained. For the promotion of our language no
effort is made, as an attempt of the Society of St. George met with no
practical result. It is true that the growth of population is adding to
the hundred millions of the English-speaking races, but there are many
regions where the language is neglected.
* * * * *
The event in literary circles in Constantinople is the appearance of
the second volume of the history of Turkey by Ahmed Jevdet Pasha. How
many years he has been engaged on this work we do not know, but at
all events a quarter of a century, and as he has been busy in high
office throughout the time his perseverance is the more remarkable. He
was among the first of the Ulema to acquire European languages, which
he did for the express purpose of this work. He has also co-operated
actively in promoting the local school of history.
* * * * *
At the last meeting but one of the New Shakspeare Society, Mr. Ewald
Flügel, of Leipsic, read some early eighteenth-century German opinions
on Shakspere which amused his hearers. They were from the works of his
great-grandfather Mencke, a celebrated professor of his day, who was
also the ancestor of Prince Bismarck’s wife. In 1700 Mencke declared
that “Certainly Dryden was the most excellent of English poets; in
every kind of poetry, but especially as a writer of tragedies. In
tragedy he was neither inferior to the French Corneille nor the
English Shakspere; and the latter he the more excelled inasmuch as
he (Dryden) was more versed in literature.” In 1702, Mencke reported
Dryden’s opinion that Shakspere was inferior to Ben Jonson, if not in
genius, yet certainly in art and finish, though Hales thought Shakspere
superior to every poet, then living or dead. In 1725, Mencke quoted
Richard Carew’s opinion (in Camden’s _Remaines_, 1614) that Catullus
had found his equal in Shakspere and Marlowe [Barlovius; Carew’s
“Barlow”]; and in his dictionary, 1733, Mencke gave the following
notice of Shakspere, “William Shakspere, an English dramatist, was born
at Stratford in 1654, was badly educated, and did not understand Latin;
nevertheless, he became a great poet. His genius was comical, but he
could be very serious, too; was excellent in tragedies, and had many
subtle and interesting controversies with Ben Jonson; but no one was
any the better for all these. He died at Stratford in 1616, April 23,
53 years old. His comedies and tragedies—and many did he write—have
been printed together in six parts in 1709 at London, and are very much
appreciated.”
* * * * *
There are now in London two societies for philosophical discussion—the
Aristotelian and the Philosophical. The latter society was founded last
winter under the chairmanship of Mr. J. S. Stuart-Glennie. Green’s
_Prolegomena to Ethics_ having been the general subject of discussion
during the year, the chairman brought the first year to a close last
month with a valedictory address on “The Criteria of Truth.” It is
proposed to continue the discussion of this subject in taking up Mr.
Herbert Spencer’s _Psychology_, and beginning with Part VII., “General
Analysis.” The society meets at Dr. Williams’s Library at eight o’clock
on the fourth Thursday of every month from October to July.
* * * * *
Mr. H. C. Maxwell Lyte is now so far advanced with the history of the
University of Oxford, upon which he has been engaged for some years,
that an instalment of it, tracing the growth of the University from the
earliest times to the revival of learning, is likely to be published by
Messrs. Macmillan & Co. early in the coming year. This volume will be
complete in itself, and accordingly provided with an index of its own.
* * * * *
The Cercle de la Librairie at Paris intends to open an exhibition of
the designs of Gustave Doré for the illustration of books. Many noted
French firms—Hachette, Mame, Jouvet, Hetzel, and Calmann Lévy—will
contribute, and so will _Le Journal pour Rire_, the _Monde Illustré_,
&c. Foreign publishers are also invited to take part.
* * * * *
At the opening of the winter season of the Arts Club in Manchester,
Mr. J. H. Nodal stated that more books were written and published
in Manchester than anywhere else in the kingdom, with the exception
of London and Edinburgh, and that he believed that Manchester as a
music-publishing centre came next to London.
MISCELLANY.
HELIGOLAND AS A STRATEGICAL ISLAND.—Regarded from a
_strategical_ point of view, the situation of Heligoland, only a few
miles off from the mouths of the Elbe and Weser rivers, and commanding
the sea entrance to the important trade centres of Bremen and Hamburg,
is of considerable importance. Although any hostile differences between
England and Germany are not very probable, in military circles in
Germany an agitation has been going on for some years to ensure its
possession by that country, as a necessary part of the coast defence
of the empire; and this suggestion has been powerfully supported by
Vice-Admiral Henck in the _German Review_, vol. ii. 1882. It has been
proposed to purchase the island from England, but a great many object
to the cost of the purchase, and the expense of the fortifications.
Some, indeed, go further than the military strategists, and say that
the abolition of the Heligoland Constitution in 1868 was illegitimate,
because it was in violation of old rights and explicit assurances;
destitute of well-grounded justification, because its ostensible
objects could have been more successfully attained by other means;
inadequate, because it failed to secure in any considerable degree
the results which it proposed to seek. It must be here mentioned that
a very good reason against any cession, voluntary or by sale, of the
island to Germany, is the probability of the misconstruction of such an
act by France, who, liable at any moment to a war with that country,
would see in England handing over Heligoland to her possible foe, for
the purpose of being formed into a marine fortress to defend the mouths
of the Elbe and the Weser, or into a naval depôt, an aid to Germany in
defence against that which France possesses, next to England, the most
powerful means of attacking, namely, her preponderance in naval power.
England and Germany are not likely to be embroiled in war, England and
France are too closely connected all over the world to wish to be so.
If Germany and France unfortunately come to blows again, England can
exercise the benevolent neutrality of 1870, and proudly, firmly, but
calmly, remain in possession of her distant island.—_Army and Navy
Magazine._
HOW THE COLDSTREAMS GOT THEIR MOTTO.—The Coldstreams were
raised in the year 1650, in the little town near Berwick-on-Tweed
from whence the regiment takes its name. Their first colonel was the
renowned George Monk (afterwards Duke of Albemarle), a General in the
Parliamentary army and an Admiral of the fleet. It is owing to this
latter fact that a small Union Jack is permitted to be borne on the
Queen’s color of the regiment, a proud distinction enjoyed by no other
corps in the service. In the year 1660 brave Monk and his gallant
Coldstreamers materially assisted in the happy restoration of the
English monarchy, and to perform this patriotic and eminently loyal act
they marched from Berwick-on-Tweed to London, meeting with a warm and
enthusiastic greeting from the inhabitants of the towns and villages
through which they passed. After the Restoration was accomplished the
troops were paraded on Tower Hill for the purpose of taking the oath
of allegiance to the King, and among those present were the three
noble regiments that form the subject of this brief history. Having
grounded their arms in token of submission to the new _régime_, they
were at once commanded to take them up again as the First, Second and
Third Regiments of Foot Guards. The First and Third Regiments obeyed,
but the Coldstreamers stood firm, and their muskets remained upon
the ground. “Why does your regiment hesitate?” inquired the King of
General Monk. “May it please your Majesty,” said the stern old soldier,
“my Coldstreamers are your Majesty’s devoted soldiers, but after the
important service they have rendered your Highness they decline to take
up arms as second to any other regiment in your Majesty’s service!”
“They are right,” said the King, “and they shall be ‘second to none.’
Let them take up their arms as my Coldstream regiment of Foot Guards.”
Monk rode back to his regiment and communicated to it the King’s
decision. It had a magical effect. The arms were instantly raised amid
frantic cries of “Long live the King!” Since this event the motto of
the regiment has been _Nulli Secundus_, which is borne in gold letters
upon its colors beneath the star and garter of the Royal House. There
also appear upon its colors the names of “Lincelles,” “Egypt” (with
the Sphinx), “Talavera,” “Barrosa,” “Peninsula,” “Waterloo,” “Alma,”
“Inkerman,” and “Sevastopol.” In the year 1850 this regiment held its
jubilee banquet to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of its
birth.—_London Society._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Popular Astronomy, p. 145.
[2] The Observatory, No. 43, p. 613.
[3] Nature, vol. xxv. p. 537.
[4] Silvered glass is considerably more reflective than speculum-metal,
and Mr. Common’s 36-inch mirror can be but slightly inferior in
luminous capacity to the Lick objective. It is, however, devoted almost
exclusively to celestial photography, in which it has done splendid
service. The Paris 4-foot mirror bent under its own weight when placed
in the tube in 1875, and has not since been remounted.
[5] E. Holden, “The Lick Observatory,” Nature, vol. xxv. p. 298.
[6] Monthly Notices, R. Astr. Soc. vol. xiv. p. 133 (1854).
[7] Phil. Trans. vol. cxlviii. p. 455.
[8] Captain Jacob unfortunately died August 16, 1862, when about to
assume the direction of a hill observatory at Poonah.
[9] The height of the mercury at Guajara is 21·7 to 22 inches.
[10] Phil. Trans. vol. cxlviii. p. 477.
[11] We are told that three American observers in the Rocky Mountains,
belonging to the Eclipse Expedition of 1878, easily saw Jupiter’s
satellites night after night with the naked eye. That their discernment
is possible, even under comparatively disadvantageous circumstances
is rendered certain by the well-authenticated instance (related by
Humboldt, “Cosmos,” vol. iii. p. 66, Otte’s trans.) of a tailor named
Schön, who died at Breslau in 1837. This man habitually perceived the
first and third, but never could see the second or fourth Jovian moons.
[12] Sir W. Herschel’s great undertakings, Bessel remarks (“Populäre
Vorlesungen,” p. 15), “were directed rather towards a physical
description of the heavens, than to astronomy proper.”
[13] Am. Jour. of Science, vol. xiii. p. 89.