Meyer, Neurologists and Neurological Laboratoties. 115 



life by utilizing it for the problems of physiology and they con- 

 tinued its study so as to make it both profitable and trustworthy. 

 The problems of physiology and of evolution take more of the 

 interest of the present generation than the dry and often unsat- 

 isfactory humiliating study of descriptive anatomy. Yet, it is 

 better that the anatomist should say : Here I am at the limit 

 of my present knowledge — than that he should make the uncrit- 

 ical reader believe that his speculations belong to the category 

 of proved facts. I admire Honegger for limiting his discussions 

 to what belongs to his field, giving all that he could obtain, but 

 with severe criticism, from a strictly anatomical standpoint. In 

 this way he offers all the information which anatomy can give 

 him ; he leaves the solution of the physiological problems to the 

 physiologist and is not misled, like Meynert, to be too ready to 

 see in his preparations what his speculations made him presup- 

 pose. 



Honegger began his anatomical research in 1876 under 

 Huguenin's direction. In 1879 he worked in Meynert's labora- 

 tory and since that time he devoted much of his leisure adding 

 to his splendid collection of serial sections. He was first work- 

 ing on the selachian brain, but was finally led to a question of 

 more special interest which he treats so fully in the only publi- 

 aation he has so far produced, in the paper on the Fornix.^ In 

 order to understand Honegger, it is absolutely necessary to be 

 familiar with Ganser's excellent monograph on the brain of the 

 mole, and with most of the literature on the parts in question. 

 He, who studied all this, will not fail to admire the learning and 

 earnest research of Honegger, although it will be difficult to 

 excuse him for giving the reader so much trouble, the style and 

 the absence of more instructive drawings making the reading 

 exceedingly difficult. 



After a very elaborate review of the literature on the for- 

 nix, he starts with a discussion of the histological and morpho- 



1 Vergleihend-anatomische Untersuchungen iiber den Fornix und die za ihm 

 in Beziehung gebrachten Gebilde im Gehirn des Menschen undder Sslugethiere. 

 Mit 10 Lichtdruck-Tafeln. von J. J. Honnegger. Recueil Zoologique Suisse, 

 t. V. Geneva, 1890. 



