Literary Notices. XV 
the psychasthenia shows in the place of this narrowing down of the 
field of consciousness a lowering of consciousness in its totality, with- 
out any complete and localized gaps of anaethesia, anamnesia, paraly- 
sis, and without subconscious and subjective elements, and, therefore, 
with a feeling of the ‘‘incompleteness” or insufficiency which is usually 
absent in hysteria. 
The work is of such fundamental importance that an abstract 
would be too incomplete to be ventured upon. Suffice it to say, that 
it is a work with which all those must be completely familiar who wish 
to get out of the hazy vagueness still existing concerning the so-called 
neurotic conditions. 
The second volume will contain the clinical material on which this 
first volume is built. 
With special gratification we note that beside the cross-sections of 
these conditions, that is, the analysis of the symptom-complex at vari- 
ous times, there is also some help offered in the direction of longitud- 
inal sections, that is, the analysis of the course of the disease from a 
general clinical point of view. The relations to mental disorders are 
given with some detail, especially the occurrence of melancholia, of 
paranoic states, mental confusion and hebephrenia. 
The book is dedicated to TH. R1ispoT, who may well be proud of 
the work of his pupil. ADOLF MEYER. 
MeMurrich’s Embryology.’ 
This book is, as the title indicates, strictly a text-book of human 
embryology. It is written largely from the comparative point of view 
and is quite full on the neurological side, these chapters comprising 
about one-fifth of the volume. The work is an eminently successful 
manual, the references to comparative embryology and comparative 
anatomy tiding the reader over many difficult subjects, notably in the 
nervous system. We note a few points of criticism. 
In the subject of histogenesis advantage is taken of the foundation 
laid down by the so-called zones of His to contrast sharply the histo- 
genesis of motor and sensory roots and centers in both spinal cord and 
brain. But the author has failed to carry out this method of treatment 
as far as possible and so has missed the recognition of the important 
fact that both dorsal and ventral zones are divisible into somatic and 
splanchnic zones, whose clear understanding sheds so much light on the 
1 The Development of the Human Body. A Manual of Human Embry- 
ology. By J. PLAYFAIR McMurRICcH, Ph.D. Philadelphia, P. Blakiston’s Son 
& Co. 1902. 
