286 Heviews, and Notices respectiftg New Booh, 



that I am quite satisfied that though chemical action may be 

 supposed to develop electricity, still electricity itself is the 

 prime mover; electrical and material attractions and repul- 

 sions, when brought into play by certain arrangements of ele- 

 ments, inducing and creating all chemical phasnomena. 

 February 7, 1837. F. W. MuLLINS. 



LX. Reviews^ and Notices respecting New Books. 



The Human Brainy its configuration , structure, development^ and phy-- 

 siology ; illustrated by references to the nervous system in the lower 

 orders of animals. By Samuel Solly, Lecturer on Anatomy 

 and Physiology in St. Thomas's Hospital. London, 1836, 12mo. 



n|"^HIS work of Mr. Solly professes to treat of the development 

 -i- and structure of the human brain as illustrated by a reference 

 to the central portions of the nervous system of the lower animals. 

 We have perused the work with much attention, and no inconsi- 

 derable degree of gratification, and are free to confess that the object 

 proposed has been faithfully accomplished. A systematic work of 

 this description has been much wanted as a class-book in our medical 

 schools, where the anatomy of the brain is almost invariably taught 

 as if the organ consisted of isolated fragments of cerebral matter 

 having- no communication with each other. Mr. Solly, as a teacher 

 of anatomy at St. Thomas's Hospital, has of late years been in the 

 habit of illustrating his lectures on this subject by continually 

 placing before the student the analogues of many parts of the brain 

 in other animals, and has thrown an interest into this branch of the 

 subject, which as treated before was dry and insipid. 



The first part of the work treats of the nervous system of the 

 lower animals, and proceeds to the consideration of that of animals 

 of a higher grade, having more especially in view the law by which 

 masses of * neurine,' termed ganglia, are concentrated, in pro- 

 portion to the higher development of the senses of the animals. 

 To illustrate this part of his subject, amongst many other interesting 

 points, the author has adduced the anatomy of the nervous system 

 of the moth, and has shown the progressive development of the 

 organism from the larva to the imago, " and the striking increase 

 in the size, and the greater complexity in the form of the nervous 

 system, when the animal becomes fitted to receive impressions from 

 the objects which surround it, which it does through the medium 

 of especial organs of sense." 



Mr. Solly has in the elucidation of this part of his subject bor- 

 rowed largely from the labours of other naturalists, but his extracts 

 from the works of others are faithfully acknowledged. 



The anatomy of the human brain forms the next division of his 

 subject, and his method of dissecting the organ accords with that 

 of Reil and Spurzheim. The anatomy is strict and minute, and 

 our author has made ns acquainted with some new facts connected 

 with the intricate structure of this complex organism. His de- 

 scription of the fornix as the " inferior longitudinal commissure," 

 differs in some points from that of other authors, and is illustrated 



