Literary Notices. ix 



fluence is not taken into account and may have more or less to do with 

 what is pointed out as an important difference between the reactions of 

 Thysanozoan as a representation of marine planarians and Planaria. 



From the relatively small amount of work done in this field Pro- 

 fessor Loeb's book is of necessity only the barest framework of a struc- 

 ture that the future may be expected to elaborate. It has the advan- 

 tage, however, of being a framework in such proportions that new 

 workers will be more concerned with filling out its deficiencies than 

 with tearing down its parts, and for this teachers and students alike 

 must be grateful to Professor Loeb. The book may be said to embrace 

 the first comprehensive rational scheme for a comparative physiology 

 of the central nervous system. g. h. p. 



Bevan Leivis' Text-Book of Mental Diseases.* 



Few works on pathology have been more generally quoted and 

 widely known than the first edition of this work and, while the peculi. 

 arities of the author's position have awakened much controversy, the 

 result has been wholesomely stimulating to research. 



The new edition comes to us in the familiar guise and, though 

 augmented and partly rewritten, the changes are not such as to require 

 a fresh estimate of the position to be assigned to the book. 



Among other important changes we notice that the discussion of 

 the nerve cell has been enriched by material relating to the contents of 

 the cell from the recent results of Nissl, Benda, Dogiel, Bethe, Lugaro 

 and others. 



The author adopts the statement of Professor His that after the 

 third month of foetal life the neuroblasts no longer increase in number 

 but in size only. Although this view has been supported by the recent 

 results of Paton2 there are practical as well as theoretical considerations 

 which make against the acceptance of the idea in its unmodified form. 

 It is incumbent upon those who promote this theory to explain where 

 the reserves which replace senile cells are situated. 



Articles on chromatolysis, fatigue and chemical constitution of the 

 nerve material, all in line with recent investigations, are interpolated in 

 this chapter which also contains a discussion of the neurone theory. 

 We are glad to notice that the terra neurocyte is used for the body of 

 the nerve cell. 



1 A Text-Book of Mental Diseases. Second edition. P. Blakiston's Sons, 

 Phila. $7.00. 



2 Neurologisches Centralblatt, No. 23, 1899. 



