LITERARY NOTICES. 



131 



organs. Among these tables, also, there is 

 a series, prepared by Prof. W. 0. Atwater, 

 showing the percentages of nutrient ingredi- 

 ents in a large number of food-materials, the 

 fuel-values in the same, and standards for 

 dietaries for different classes and occupa- 

 tions. Another table shows the expectation 

 of life as derived from records of life-insur- 

 ance companies, and from the last United 

 States census. 



The Anatomy op the Frog. By Dr. Al- 

 exander Ecker. Translated, etc., by 

 George Haslam, M. D. Illustrated. Ox- 

 ford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Mac- 

 millan & Co. Pp. 449, with Colored 

 Plates. Price, $5.25. 



The frog is aptly designated by the au- 

 thor as eminently the physiological domestic 

 animal. It is kept in every physiological 

 laboratory, and is daily sacrificed in num- 

 bers on the altar of science. The physiolo- 

 gist has recourse to it, not only to obtain an- 

 swers to new questions, but for the sake of 

 demonstrating easily and quickly the most 

 important known facts of the science. It 

 has furnished the means through which many 

 most important discoveries in physiology have 

 been made. It has " afforded almost the only 

 material for the investigation of the excita- 

 bility of nerves and its associated electro- 

 motive changes, and also no inconsiderable 

 part of the remaining nerve and muscle 

 physiology." Much of our knowledge of the 

 functions of the spinal cord is derived from 

 experiment upon it. Its muscles have served 

 for the investigation of the phenomena and 

 the conditions of contraction. But for the 

 web of its foot and the gills and tail of its 

 tadpole, " we should not perhaps for a long 

 time have arrived at a satisfactory knowl- 

 edge of the existence and the conditions of 

 the capillary circulation. Acquaintance with 

 the constituents of the blood directly con- 

 cerned in nutrition ; important facts in the 

 physiology of the blood and lymph ; and in- 

 sight into the laws of the heart's action, 

 have all been obtained by observations and 

 experiments on the frog. To it, also, in his- 

 tology, we owe much of our knowledge of 

 the structure of nerve-fibers, their origin 

 and termination, their relations within the 

 ganglia, and the structure of muscular fiber ; 

 and for the study of reproduction and devel- 

 opment the frog has, next to the chick, af- 



forded the most important material." The 

 importance of students being well acquaint- 

 ed with the anatomy and structure of an ani- 

 mal which plays so prominent a part in their 

 researches is obvious ; and it is this which 

 Dr. Ecker, who is Professor of Human and 

 Comparative Anatomy in the University of 

 Freiberg, and Dr. Haslam, have furnished 

 in the present book. The original work of 

 Prof. Ecker was published in 1864. A second 

 part, embodying, besides the author's work, 

 fruits of the researches of Prof. Wieders- 

 heim, appeared in 1881-82. The transla- 

 tion was undertaken by Dr. Haslam at the 

 suggestion of Prof. A. Gamgee, and was ac- 

 cepted by the delegates of the Clarendon 

 Press as one of the series of Foreign Bio- 

 logical Memoirs published by them. But it 

 soon became evident that a mere translation 

 would be unsatisfactory, and that it would 

 be desirable to recast and modify parts of 

 the book, and to give descriptions of the 

 minute structure of the several organs. The 

 translator has included the results of recent 

 researches, and has added facts derived from 

 his own observations. 



The Elements op Astronomy. With an 

 Uranography. By Prof. Charles A. 

 Young. Boston : Ginn & Co. Pp. 470. 

 Price, $1.55. 



Prop. Young has prepared this text-book 

 for use in high schools and academies, using 

 in it much of the material and many of the 

 illustrations of his larger work, General As- 

 tronomy. The author has tried to avoid 

 going to an extreme in cutting down and 

 simplifying, while giving a clear treatment 

 of every subject. From the number of 

 pages in the book it may be inferred that he 

 has provided abundant material for a high- 

 school course in astronomy. He has paid 

 special attention to making all statements 

 correct as far as they go, though many of 

 them, on account of the elementary charac- 

 ter of the book, are necessarily incomplete. 

 No mathematics higher than elementary 

 algebra and geometry is introduced into the 

 text. In an appendix of some seventy pages, 

 methods of making certain calculations and 

 the construction of astronomical instruments 

 are described. The Uranography comprises 

 a brief description of the constellations vis- 

 ible in the United States, with four maps, 

 from which the principal stars may be iden- 



