Literary Notices. xlix 



Gray's Anatomy^ 



In giving to the public a new edition of the well known Anatomy 

 of Henry Gray, the American publishers undertook a task for which 

 the time was thoroughly ripe. In the three branches of the subject 

 on which, particularly, revision has been bestowed — Histology, and 

 Visceral and Nervous Anatomy — the progress of our knowledge has 

 been pronounced, and characteristic of the scientific methods newly 

 invoked by human anatomists. The section on 'the brain is written 

 by Dr Gallaudet, the general editor. That Dr. Gallaudet has succeded 

 to a certam extent in modernizing Gray is undeniable. In the place 

 of crude illustrations and vague descriptions, he has substituted the 

 more careful work of German investigators, reproducing Mihalkovics 

 for the embryological, for the regional and sectional anatomy, 

 Schwalbe, Gegenbaur and Henle. Yet it is as certain that these "new" 

 descriptions are behind the times by at least fifteen years. Not alone 

 original articles, but text-books, such as Edinger, v. Gehuchten, even 

 Quain, wh ch embody the result of more recent research, have been 

 entirely neglected. The description of the internal course of the fifth 

 nerve may be quoted by way of example. Of the so-called Ascend- 

 ing Root, it is said that ''its fibres may take origin from the cells of 

 the tubercle of Rolando, but this is considered doubtful. Passing up- 

 wards this root enters the pons, and contributes most of the fibres of 

 the regular sensory root of the nerves." Doubtful, indeed! Further 

 on: "each root [of the fifth] is seen to divide just before reaching 

 its nucleus into two bundles, the smaller of which, in each case, goes 

 to the nucleus, while the other takes a distinct course, differing for 

 the two roots, thus : the non-nuclear division of the motor root passes 

 upward as a distmct bundle through the dorsal part of the pons and 

 into the mid-brain, where its fibers terminate in a group of large nerve 

 cells situated in the gray matter on the side of the aqueduct of Syl- 

 vius. This is the so called descending root of the fifth nerve. The 

 * non-nuclear ' division of the sensory root is the so-called ascending 

 root." Descriptions such as this, which for the modern students have 

 hardly even an historical value, might be multiplied almost ad libitum. 

 In the paragraphs on the microscopic anatomy of the cortex, it is sad 

 to find that preference has been given over Cajal to the useless but 

 elaborate descriptions of the pre-Golgi epoch. 



^ Anatomy, Descriptive and Surgical, by Henry Gray. A new edition, thor- 

 oughly revised by American authorities, from the thirteenth English edition, 

 edited by T. Pickering Pick. Lea Brothers and Co., Philadelphia and New 

 York. 1896. 



