Literary Notices. cxliii 



The Functions of the Pituitary Body. 



Vassale and Sacchi' have published the results of experimental 

 extirpation of hypophysis. They were able to destroy that body with- 

 out grave operative complications. The complete destruction of the 

 organ is fatal in dog or cat, but partial injury may exist for a long 

 time though it is impossible to say whether regeneration follows. 

 Though the symptoms of injury to the pituitary are similar to those 

 arising from extir[)ation of the thyroid the authors do not admit that 

 the interrelations are such that one may substitute for the other. 

 These functions show that the hypophysis belongs to the class of 

 glands destruction of which occasions the accumulation of toxic sub- 

 stances. 



American Lampreys. 



Neurologists will be grateful for the descriptive information on 

 the habits and specific characters given by Professor S. H. Gage in the 

 Wilder Quarter Century Book, published in September, 1893. The 

 paper is fully illustrated and is provided with map and bibliography. 



The Brain of the Spotted Newt.^ 



The author is already well known as a skillful scientific artist and 

 by reason of several anatomical papers. The present contribution is 

 a bulky monograph fully illustrated and dealing with the topograph- 

 ical rather than histological relations. The incitation to the study 

 seems to have been the suggestion that striking structural changes 

 might accompany the remarkable change m habit which has already 

 formed the subject of an interesting paper by Professor S. H. Gage.^ 



The descriptions of the regional anatomy is painstaking and 

 shows familiarity with the literature. While admitting that in the 

 finer structure of the nerve cells, in the path of nerve tracts, and their 

 exact processes of growth, determined by finer methods, a more com- 

 plete correlation of brain structure with the crises of the life history 

 may be found, there are no m'arked changes in morphology revealed by 

 methods employed corresponding to these crises. There is, however. 



^Rev Speriinentale, XVIII, 3, 4, Dec, 1892. 



''■ Gage, Susanna Phelps. The Brain of Diemyctyus viridescens from 

 Larval to adult Life and comparisons with the Brain Amia and Petromyzon. 

 Wilder Quarter Century Book. Sept., 1S93. 



■■'Life History of the Vermillion-spotted Newt. Amer. Naturalist, XXV, 

 i8qi. 



