xxxvi Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



readers of these pages will in all probability be disappointed in finding 

 the characters and doings of spirits much less interesting and credita- 

 ble than they are represented in the familiar writings of Milton and 

 Dante." This in itself would be sufficient refutation of the claim to 

 most candid readers, but no explanation is vouchsafed. 



We ought perhaps to accept the Chinese idea that the demons are 

 simply the souls of the departed who have not been so fortunate as to 

 appear in the imperial edict deifying them off-hand. 



Of the question as to the relation of the described phenomena 

 with those of New Testament times we say nothing, though it forms a 

 large element in the book. But we have done. That the views pre- 

 sented should be accepted by scientific men is impossible ; that they 

 should gain acceptance in the circle of religious enterprise and educa- 

 tion would be very unfortunate as it would tend to perpetuate and 

 widen a very unnecessary breach where the fullest harmony and sym- 

 pathy is important. c. l. h. 



The Growth of the Brain.' 



The present volume is a very worthy addition to the Contempo- 

 rary Science Series, for in its 19 chapters containing 368 pages, there 

 is a clear, concise, and very readable statement of the most interesting 

 facts regarding the growth of the brain. 



The author gives in his first chapter an introduction to the study 

 of growth and sums up the laws which seem to govern it. The grad- 

 ual increase of the weight of the human body is represented by means 

 of diagrams, the comparison between the male and female being well 

 brought out. The next chapter gives with greater detail the relative 

 increase of different parts of the body, showing the proportion between 

 weight-increase and increase of stature. In the fourth chapter the 

 weight of the brain and spinal cord are treated. The point is clearly 

 made that in taking brain weights other things than nerve cells are 

 often weighed, as for instance the membranes, pia and dura, the blood 

 vessels and cavities with their fluid contents ; therefore there is bound 

 to be a certain discrepancy in the weights made by different observers 

 if the same methods of weighing are not followed. This the author 

 claims has not been done, and much of the material now at hand is 

 consequently of little value in making deductions. In trying to arrive 



'The Growth of the Brain, by Henry Herbert Donaldson, Professor of 

 Neurology in the University of Chicago. Imported by Charles Scribner's Sons, 

 New York, $1.25, 



