Atlas of Legal Medicine. By Dr. E. von Hofmann. Translated by Drs. Frederick Peterson and Kelly. London: The Kebman

Publishing Company. 1898.

This volume, which constitutes the seventeenth of the series of Hand Atlases issued by Lehmann, is in no way inferior to those which have

preceded it, and the name of Hofmann alone is a sufficient guarantee that the subjects illustrated and described in the text will form a

valuable addition to medico-legal literature. The work has a melancholy interest, inasmuch as it was practically

completed during the last few weeks of the life of him who perhaps has done more than anyone else to advance our knowledge of forensic medicine.

In the preface Hofmann states that the Atlas is intended to serve as a supplement to a good text-book, in which it is impossible to adequately illustrate the various subjects treated, and therefore he has limited the

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descriptions of the plates so far as possible, at the same time choosing those subjects for illustration not usually portrayed in text-books. There are fifty-six coloured plates and 193 reproductions of photographs, taken almost wholly from preparations in the unique museum of the Medico-Legal Institute of Vienna, and dealing with, among other subjects, deformities and abnormalities of the genital organs; various conditions of the hymen and os uteri; abortion; infanticide; injuries t? the skull; homicidal and suicidal wounds; gunshot injuries; hang- ing and strangulation; and the appearances presented by the stomach and internal organs in various forms of poisoning.

That most of the illustrations are excellent reproductions of the

original preparations, we can testify from personal experience ; and so far as illustrations can take the place of examination of actual specimens, the Atlas, which is exceedingly moderate in price, will be an assistance

the study of the subject. It only remains to be said that the trans- lators have, to use their own expression,

" Englished

" the text well, a

task by no means easy with such an incisive and epigrammatic style of description as that possessed by Hofmann.

Harvey Littlejohn.