BOOK NOTICES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 29, 26 July 1923, Page 23

BOOK NOTICES

Tulaiil-hamen, by G. Elliot Smith, F.R.S. Per Angus and Robertson, Sydney. 4/6 net. This volume contains a collection of articles contributed to the Daily Telegraph by the author, who has been persuaded to collect them in view of the great interest in the recent researches displayed by the public. The book is excellently produced, and the illustrations are numerous ami interesting. It will be read eagerly by all who appreciate the value of those discoveries of an ancient and wonderful culture in the Orient. Medical Proof of the Miraculous, by E. Le Bee. Translated from the French by IT. E. Izard, with an intro-, duction by Ernest E. Ware, M.D., M.R.C.S. Per Angus and Robertson. Price 6/G. In an ago when materialism scoffs at the supernatural and at the same time exhibits a wonderful credulity where charlatans arc concerned a documented study of the miraculous cures at Lourdes is particularly interesting. This volume by Dr. Le Bee has been already translated into many European languages, and is now presented in English by a highly qualified translator. It deals with a number qf typical cases of miraculous cures, and the author claims that whoever examines them with scientific care will be forced to admit the positive intervention of the supernatural. Keen inquiry by qualified judges is welcomed, and the contention is that the result will be evidence •of the intervention of a force superior to nature to explain the rapidity or the instantaneousness of the -cure. Among the pathological cases chosen for inquiry are varicose veins, suppurative fracture of the leg, lupus, club feet, intestinal perforations, recurring cancer, etc. Each case is described, its authenticity established, the absence of the. time Victor and the material impossibility of a natural cell production / to produce the anatomical repair of the lesions, explained. Ordinary medical and scientific criticism is applied to the study of the. cures, which are of such varied type. The mysterious force, which must be supernatural, is sometimes seen to use existing living tissues, while in other cases there appear elements not existing in the*' body immediately before the cure, or, again, the disappearance of morbid existing matter' as in the case of cancer, is completely., effected by a phenomenon which seems to bo the inverse of creation. V (