Professor von Noorden has again placed the medical profession under obligations by deciding in an authoritative way the mooted questions concerning the influence of the sodium chloride waters on the digestion in conditions of disturbed gastric secretion as well as in gout, diabetes, and other diseases of nutrition. Applying the satisfactory clinical method of exact observations in a large series of carefully studied cases, he has arrived at results which are different in some respects from those reached by experimenters upon animals and healthy men. His results thus obtained are manifestly a safer guide for clinicians. They constitute an important contribution to the therapeutics of various prevalent as well as rather troublesome affections, and should prove of exceptional interest and practical value. They also refute completely some of the antiquated and unscientific notions which have long been promulgated at the European Spas to the effect that the alkaline and saline waters are incompatible with certain articles of diet, such as the fats, fruit, etc.

Dr. Alfred C. Croftan of Chicago has made the translation into English, as in the case of the previous volumes of this series.

Boardman Reed, M. D.

1831 Chestnut Street,

Philadelphia, April 20, 1904.