Editorial. 669 



lobes in predacious species which capture moving prey by the 

 sense of sight. The change from aquatic to aerial respiration in 

 the Amphibia involves changes in the medulla oblongata parallel 

 with the atrophy or change of function of the branchial muscles 

 which are as yet imperfectly understood and which can be learned 

 only by a closely correlated examination of the central and periph- 

 eral organs of a selected series of forms. 



Now returning to Dr. Edinger's manual, the changes wrought 

 in this edition are quite revolutionary. The first chapter opens 

 with an analysis of the peripheral nerves based on the work of the 

 recent students of nerve components. In later chapters the me- 

 dulla oblongata is subdivided in accordance with the same criteria 

 along lines which follow in a general way those laid down by the 

 American school of comparative neurologists, though with an 

 entirely new series of illustrative figures and with many differences 

 of interpretation. Most of these differences take the direction 

 of conservatism toward the newer morphological ideas and the 

 result is many cases of confusion, sometimes amounting to actual 

 contradiction, growing out of the imperfect assimilation of the 

 old data and the new morphology. But in the broad view there 

 has been during the past decade a rapid rapprochement between 

 the German and American comparative neurologists, particularly 

 in the interpretation of the peripheral nerves and the brain stem, 

 which is very gratifying to those who have painful recollections of 

 the recent (and still all too prevalent) chaos in the morphological 

 interpretaiton of the medulla oblongata and its nerves. 



In the midbrain and thalamus there is as yet no such gratifying 

 harmony of interpretation as in the medulla oblongata. In fact, 

 the best course at present open to us in considering the morphology 

 of these regions is a serious appHcation to anatomical study to the 

 end that we may acquire a more precise and comprehensive knowl- 

 edge of the facts before we attempt to complete our morphological 

 interpretation. 



In the chapters of Dr. Edinger's work devoted to the forebrain 

 we find the most original and the most important of his own con- 

 tributions to the comparative morphology of the brain. The inter- 

 pretation of the primordial palHum as a center of correlation for 

 all of the sense organs of the snout (smell, tactile and somaesthetic 

 sensations of the lips, tongue, etc.) is an exceedingly fruitful sug- 

 gestion which promises much as a point of departure for the ulti- 



