668 'Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology. 



Edinger's lectures on the Central Nervous System, published in 

 1904, and the seventh edition, published in 1908.^ 



Dr. Edinger has, either personally or v^ith the help of other 

 members of his staff, worked over a large part of the field covered 

 by the voluminous literature of comparative neurology of the 

 past decade. He has therefore been able to make this edition 

 of his text-book, like its predecessors, very largely a record of his 

 own observations. This is at the same time a source of great 

 strength and of considerable weakness in his work — of strength 

 because all of the old facts presented come with the added weight 

 of Edinger's confirmation; of weakness because many equally 

 important facts or theoretical conclusions which do not chance to 

 fall within the scope of the author's personal observation are alto- 

 gether omitted. 



The older literature on the comparative anatomy of the medulla 

 oblongata is a confusing mass of contradictory detail, dominated 

 largely by misleading metameric schemata. The recognition of 

 functional units within the oblongata, each of which stands in 

 relation with a definite component of the peripheral nerves and 

 each of which is integrated in a characteristic manner and has 

 its own special type of secondary reflex pathways — ^this has made 

 possible a far more simple and comprehensive exposition of the 

 structure of this part of the brain than we have had before. While 

 much remains to be explained in the comparative anatomy of the 

 medulla oblongata, the underlying morphological pattern has been 

 exposed and is found to be surprisingly constant in all vertebrates. 

 This constancy of type grows out of the fact that this part of the 

 brain uniformly serves the simpler vital functions, such as feeding, 

 respiration, etc., whose peripheral mechanisms are broadly similar 

 in vertebrates. Such variations in feeding habits as do occur 

 are, however, accompanied by changes in the details of cerebral 

 structure; as, for example, the development of the enormous vagal 

 lobes of the carp correlated with the peculiar palatal organ of 

 this fish, and the modifications in the sensory termini of the facialis 

 nerve correlated with the peripheral distribution of cutaneous 

 taste buds in Ameiurus and Gadus respectively. Another illus- 

 tration is furnished by the development of large eyes and optic 



' Edinger, L. Vorlesungen iiber den Bau der Nervosen Zentralorgane des Menschen und der 

 Tiere. Bd. 2. Verlgeichende Anatomie des Gehirns. Seventh Edition. Leipzig, F. C. W. Vogel. 



