BOOK NOTICES 669

Transactions of the American Ophthal-mological Society. 1934, vol. 32. Cloth bound, illustrations, 639 pages. Wm. F. Fell Co., Philadel­phia.

The 32d volume is quite comparable to its predecessors. The form is similar and the contents of corresponding im­portance. There are twenty-five papers which were read before the society and nine accepted candidates' theses. To se­lect any one or even a few papers for special mention is difficult in this excel­lent collection.

Many of these papers have been pub­lished in this Journal and in the Ar­chives of Ophthalmology.

Lawrence T. Post.

Das Trachom (Trachoma). By Prof. Dr. A. Peters, Director of the Uni­versity Eye Clinic in Rostock. Stiff paper covers, 289 pages, no illus­trations, price 16 marks. Verlag von S. Karger, Berlin, 1935.

Apart from certain rather obvious limitations in the author's access to the world literature of trachoma, and also apart from some slovenliness in prepa­ration of the bibliographic lists, this work is a painstaking compilation of the literature on trachoma. It includes a short history of trachoma, a list of monographs on the subject, a chapter on the clinical picture of trachoma, one

on the histology of trachoma, one on the search for the exciting agent of tracho­ma, one on contagiosity and immunity, one on the combating and prophylaxis of trachoma, one on the geographic dis­tribution of trachoma, and a final chap­ter on the treatment of trachoma.

Recent therapeutic proposals are re­viewed, and recent investigations as to the possibile part played by Bacillus granulosis in the causation of trachoma are mentioned, including those of some American writers. Unfortunately, the bibliographic lists make it only too evi­dent that the author's acquaintance with non-German literature is almost entirely restricted to such abstracts as appear in German publications. The ridiculous result is that any reader of this volume who desires fuller acquaint­ance with the references given will find it necessary to obtain the German ab­stracts in order to discover their origin. Whole groups of references, obviously derived from French, Italian, or English language sources, are attributed to the Zentralblatt fur die gesamte Ophthal-mologie und ihre Grenzebiete. Such an origin is given, for example, for papers by Bengtson, Thygeson, and Wilson, while further papers by Finnoff and Thygeson are attributed to Klinische Monatsblatter fur Augenheilkunde.

Each chapter has a detailed table, of contents, but the volume as a whole has no alphabetic index.

W. H. Crisp.