Diseases of the Heart and Aorta.

This volume is destined to become a valuable reference work for the practitioner and a more familiar and necessary companion to the teacher of internal medicine. A cursory comparison of this book with Samson's "Diseases of the Heart and Aorta," written twenty years ago, is instructive. In the older treatise symptomatology received more attention, and, of the methods of examination, auscultation and percussion were strongly emphasized. The sphygmograph was expounded at great length and an importance attached to its arterial tracings that is no longer conceded. Turning from the old to the present volume we note the dominant influence of physiologic studies, including the results of experimental observation. The arterial tracings have been replaced by simultaneous tracings of heart, artery and vein by which alterations and irregularities of cardiac rhythm can be definitely analyzed. The arterial sphygmomanometer has developed a great field of knowledge. Thex-ray has given a