Ixvi Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



can degenerate downward, but what this means is not explained. A 

 few scattered cases from the Hterature are quoted but mostly not di- 

 gested. The clinical part, hemiplegia, aphasia, etc. , is given a rather 

 full treatment. 



Chapter VII begins with an enumeration of the cranial nerves. 

 From here on the book contains short monographic articles of these 

 nerves and their diseases, a counterpart to what was undertaken so 

 splendidly by v. Frankl-Hochwart and others in Nothnagel's Handbook. 

 We can only enter here on the anatomical and physiological intro- 

 ductions. 



The olfactory. ' The short or reflex central path of the nerve, if 

 such exists as a distinct path, is probably by way of the albicans and 

 anterior portion of thalamus, while the cortical areas are the precallosal 

 part of the gyrus fornicatus, the septum lucidum, and the inferior ex- 

 tremity of the hippocampal gyre and the uncinate gyre, and probably 

 also the amygdala, the dentate fascia, and the stria of Lancisii.' This 

 is a statement open to many criticisms; it is evidently made for the 

 sake of having a long and a short path for each sense. On p. 668, 

 much space is taken for the assertion that the olfactory nerve like the 

 optic nerve is really part of the brain. This seems to come from a 

 confusion of olfactory bulb and nerve. The olfactory nerve is built on 

 the phylogenetically oldest plan of a sensory nerve, and does not even 

 reach medullation. Burckhardt and many others have shown that it 

 cotnes from the cells in the mucous membrane. Indeed Mills gives 

 some of these data in the next paragraph and adds : ' The olfactory 

 epithelium represents far more the origin of the olfactory fibers than it 

 does their termination.' The data collected on the following five or 

 six pages are furnished more directly from the sources, and on p. 670 

 the misstatements alluded to are given correctly with repetitions, fol- 

 lowed by an ' abstract ' from Kolliker on the central portion. Any 

 unsophisticated student or practitioner will find himself overawed by 

 the latter. The statement concerning the connection of the optic tract 

 and the ganglion habenulae as described by Mendel is revived. Further 

 we get continual references to the ' horn of Amnion ' [sic] ; if the stu- 

 dent would try to get the synonym according to the 'improved nomen- 

 clature,' he could not do so in the rest of the work ; it would remain 

 a foreign body since everywhere else it is called hippocampus and he 

 cannot be expected to understand fig. 341 on the ground of the general 

 anatomy given by Mills. 



P. 683-698 deal with the anatomy and physiology of the organs of 

 taste. This summary is the clearest and best of the book, if we dis- 



