Literary Notices. cxlvii 



compliment to Professor Wilder implied in the volume dedicated to 

 him is augmented by the character of the work by his students and 

 collaborators. 



Ediiiger's Lectures upon tlie Stnieture oftlie Central Nervous System.' 



No better testimony to the value of the book before us is needed 

 than the repeated necessity for new editions. It is but a year since 

 the appearance of the third edition in Germany and not a much longer 

 time since the second edition was made available to the American 

 public through the excellent translation of Vittum and Riggs. The 

 present edition is considerably extended and has been in some parts 

 rewritten. To those who are acquainted only with the second or the 

 English edition the volumn is now practically new. 



There have been many good works on the anatomy of the brain 

 but among them this little book of Edinger's stands preeminent in 

 virtue of two excellencies, clearness and a comparative method. We 

 can be no longer blind to the fact that the way to study the human 

 brain successfully is to spend the first moiety of time at disposal upon 

 that of lower animals and a good share of the remaining time upon 

 the embryonic stages. Dr. Edinger enjoys the great advantage of 

 basing his descriptions very largely upon personal investigation ot 

 a wide range of subjects. 



We notice that considerable use has been made of the results of 

 the methyl blue and Golgi methods and the rather meager statements 

 upon the histogenesis of the nervous system have been considerably 

 augmented by reference to the recent work of Retzius, VanGehuchten 

 and Cajal. Colored plates of excellent workmanship enrich this sec- 

 tion. The embryological portion is still insufficient to give a clear 

 idea of the instructive correspondences between ontogeny and phylog- 

 eny. 



The interpolation of new matter has, we think, disturbed the unity 

 of presentation in several cases. One would think that it would now 

 be safe to admit a reference to the parietal nerve in connection with 

 the parietal vesicle. The writer is not yet prepared to admit the as- 

 sociation of the habenulae with the olfactory function, in spite of the 

 admitted close connection of the taenia with the lateral radix. 



The account of the regional anatomy of the mammalian cerebrum 



'Edinger, 1^. Vorlesungen iiber den Bau der Nervosen Centralorgane. 

 Fiir Aerzte und Studirende. (Fourth Revised Edition) Leipzig, F. C. W. 

 Vogel, Price 7 marks. 



