Notices and Analyses. 157 



On the Development of the Vascular System in the Foetus of 

 Vertebrated Animals. By Allen Thomson, M.D. &c. (To be 

 continued.) — Edinh. New Phil, Journal, Oct, 1830. Pp. 293. 



This first part of an Essay, which was the subject of the Author's inau- 

 gural dissertation on taking the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the 

 University of Edinburgh, contains a detailed account of the discoveries 

 of Pander, Baer, Serres, Rolando, Pre vost, and Dumas, Rathke, Meckel, 

 &c. on the changes of the germinal membrane, and the development 

 of the heart, in the vertebrata. Much interesting information may be 

 obtained from this paper by those who are unacquainted with the 

 German language ; and it derives additional value from the observations 

 of the writers referred to, having been repeated and compared by the 

 assiduous author. 



An Account of two newly discovered Muscles for compressing 

 the Dorsal Vein of the Penis, in Man and other Animals, and 

 also of a similar provision for compressing the Veins of the 

 Chameleon's Tongue. By John Houston, M. R. I. A. &c. Pp. 25. 

 . — Dublin Hospital Report, V. 458. 



We really wish that anatomists and others would save our time and 

 their own, by being a little more concise in their descriptions, when 

 they take it into their heads that they have made a discovery. 



Mr Houston states, that the late Mr Shekleton, his predecessor in the 

 office of Curator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons 

 in Ireland, in dissecting the penis of a dog, " discovered two muscles 

 connected with the venae dorsales, and admirably adapted for making 

 such compression on these vessels as to obstruc't the current of blood 

 in their canal."* And Mr H., pursuing the idea, has since found 

 them in several other animals ; and, " by persevering in his search for 

 them, and by a variety of dissections, at length, on the 15th July, 

 1830," he even discovered them in the human subject ! From this 

 fortunate circumstance, Mr Houston considers himself entitled to put 

 forward, with an air of novelty, the speculation, that the use of this 

 pair of muscles is to contribute to the erection of the penis, by 

 obstructing the current of blood in the dorsal veins ; and he goes so 

 far as to give them the theoretical name of compressores vence dorsaUs 

 penis. 



We can hardly believe that Mr Shekleton, who was an anatomist, could 

 have supposed that he was the discoverer of these muscles in the dog, 

 after the accurate descriptions of them given by Douglas, (Myogra- 

 phice Comp. Spec. 1775, p. 57,) as a, digastric muscle, under the 

 name -of transversalis, and by Monro, ( Treatise on Comp. Anat. 1783, 

 p. 54,) as the transversales penis : not to mention the Anat. Comp. of 

 Cuvier, in which they are stated to exist in the bears, the raccoon, the 

 dog, &c. (Vol. V. p. 102,) though Mr H. says they are only " cursorily 

 alluded to ; " nor to refer to the doubtful descriptions of Blasius and 



* Each muscle arises from the inferior and posterior part of the ramus of the pubes, 

 and by a few fibres from the eras penis, and is inserted with its fellow into a tendon 

 between the symphysis pubis and the penis. A transverse slit in the tendon admits 

 cff the passage of the dorsal vein of the penis, the arteries and nerves being separated 

 from the vein by a fibrous partition. — Ed. 



