LITERARY NOTICES. 



Edinger's Lectures— Fifth Edition.' 



It is difficult to speak in measured terms of the new edition of 

 this highly appreciated work. Nothing less than delight expresses ones 

 feelings in turning the well-printed, fully illustrated pages. Delight 

 that the essentials of descriptive brain-anatomy have been so clearly 

 and adequately presented, delight that the results of modern histology 

 have been appreciatively and conservatively employed and, more and 

 better than all, that we now have an approach toward an outline of 

 comparative neurology in convenient and orderly form. No one 

 can rise from even a casual perusal of this work without having 

 grasped the fact that the comparative method lies at the basis of all 

 true comprehension of the nervous system. While judicious and con- 

 servative, the work before us is progressive and comes fresh from the 

 laboratory with evidence of research on every page. Here for the 

 first time we have the attempt to present a picture of the vertebrate 

 central organs as a consistent whole and the result inspires confidence 

 that the discrepancies between the various groups will disappear when 

 sufficiently investigated. From 220 pp. the volume has grown to 386 

 and the greater part of the additional matter is comparative. While 

 the author has based his descriptions upon original work to an extent 

 quite beyond all expectation, he nevertheless has not ignored the work 

 of those who preceded him. 



The first part contains, beside the historical introduction of the 

 old edition, a discussion of the neurocyte and cellular histology and a 

 very useful summary of the elementary facts of cellular physiology. 

 The fourth lecture is devoted to embryology and is perhaps less satis- 

 factory than most of the other sections by reason of its brevity and the 

 consequent omissions. Then follow nine lectures (all new) devoted to 

 the comparative anatomy of the brain and cord. The illustrations 

 are nearly all new, though many are based on the author's published 

 studies. The treatment of the reptile brain is especially full and sat- 



* Vorlesungen Uber den Bau der Nervosen Centralorgane des Menscbea 

 und der Thiere. F. C. W. Vogel, Leipzig, 1896. 



