412 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



taken for some days after the operation con- 

 sisted of sour milk, one litre a day, as an at- 

 tempt to nourish the patient with broth did 

 not seem acceptable to her. The peptonized 

 injections were dispensed with, as they pro- 

 duced flatulence and colic. Injections of wine 

 three times daily were therefore substituted. 

 The patient, upon her own request, was a few 

 days later removed to tlie general ward, and 

 she has since been discharged from the hospi- 

 tal, cured. The excised part measures at the 

 greater curvature {hori'ibile dictu !) fourteen 

 centimetres, and it is with difficulty only that 

 I am enabled to pass a goose-quill through 

 the pyloi-us. The shape of the stomach is 

 changed little by the operation. It is only a 

 little smaller than formerly. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



General Physiology of Muscles and 

 Nerves. By Dr. J. Rosenthal, Pro- 

 fessor of Physiology in the University 

 of Erlangen. (" International Scientific 

 Series," No. XXXII.) New York: D. 

 Aopleton k Co. 1881. Pp. 324. Price, 

 $1.50. 



Professor Rosenthal has well con- 

 formed to the theory of the " International 

 Scientific Series " in the preparation of this 

 work. It was designed to consist of mon- 

 ographs on special subjects, and not of 

 complete scientific treatises. In this way 

 particular subjects may be more fully ex- 

 pounded than they are in the text-books, 

 while yet the form of publication is popu- 

 lar and convenient. If any one, for exam- 

 ple, looks in the manuals of physiology for 

 a statement of the relations of muscles and 

 nerves, he will find that the information, if 

 not scanty, is still most incomplete. Yet 

 such arc the interest and importance of the 

 subject, that many would like to consult a 

 more adequate presentation. Professor Ro- 

 senthal's volume will meet their require- 

 ments. It goes over the whole ground of 

 the recent researches into muscular and 

 nervous action, and is, moreover, the first 

 attempt to deal with it in a popular and 

 methodical way. 



But few men could have been found as 

 well prepared for the execution of his task 

 as Professor Rosenthal. The problem of 

 muscles and nerves has occupied his life. 

 He worked for many years in connection 



with Professor Emile Du Bois-Reymond, the 

 celebrated Berlin physiologist, to whom the 

 present volume is dedicated. Broadly cul- 

 tivated in the physiological field, and long 

 disciplined in the experimental research of 

 nervo-muscular relations, he has been ena- 

 bled to give weight and authority to his ex- 

 position of the subject. 



On general and obvious grounds, no sub- 

 ject is more important than this, and we 

 can think of none that should more deeply 

 interest all classes of readers. Man is a 

 being endowed with great capacities of ac- 

 complishment by virtue of the agency of 

 muscles and nerves. They are the means 

 of his pleasures and the sources of his 

 pains. One would think that he might be 

 concerned to understand something about 

 them ; and, if he has any sense of the rela- 

 tive values of different kinds of knowledge, 

 that he would place the understanding of 

 his own mechanism first, and desire a thor- 

 ough acquaintance with all that is positively 

 known concerning the conditions of mus- 

 cular and nervous exercise. The topic, be- 

 sides, is one of profound intellectual inter- 

 est. Nothing is more wonderful than the 

 working of that higher organic mechanism 

 by which power in the living being is ex- 

 erted and controlled. There is nothing so 

 subtile, so curious, so marvelous, as that 

 incessant interaction of the muscular and 

 nervous systems which is involved in all the 

 familiar activities and operations of the hu- 

 man body. The strange thing is how it has 

 been so finely and fully elucidated. Many 

 things, of course, remain still mysterious 

 and unsettled, but we have a large body of 

 well-established facts and principles that 

 have been most difficult of determination, 

 and which forms one of the great monu- 

 ments of skillful, persevering, and success- 

 ful scientific labor. Physics and chemistry 

 arc generally spoken of as the experimental 

 sciences, but physiology is also now in the 

 highest sense an experimental science,while, 

 for delicacy and difficulty of operation and 

 consummate contrivances for dealing with 

 obscure and complex phenomena, the phys- 

 iological laboratory has precedence of all 

 the workshops of experiment. Professor 

 Rosenthal's book is filled with elegant illus- 

 trations of physiological instruments and 

 apparatus, and there are many exquisite 



