CARPENTER, ON HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY. 291 
of the system, without being received either into the veins or the 
lacteals; the odorous substances were generally detected in the 
venous blood and in the urine, but not in the chyle; whilst of the 
saline substances, many were found in the blood and in the urine, and 
a very few only in the chyle.* A similar conclusion might be drawn 
from the numerous instances in which various substances introduced 
into the intestines have been detected in the blood, although the 
thoracic duct had been tied; but these results are less satisfactory, 
because, though there is probably no direct communication (as 
maintained by many) between the lacteals and the veins in the 
mesenteric glands, the partitions which separate their respective con- 
tents are evidently so thin, that transudation may readily take place 
through them. 
In the chapter devoted to the blood, the amount of attention 
devoted to chemical considerations has beeu much reduced in 
this edition, and for the very good reason that little reliance 
can be placed on the chemical analysis of substances having 
the high combining proportions of the constituents of the 
blood. The field which still opens up the highest prospect of 
future discoveries in the blood is that of the morphology of its 
globules and crystals, which can alone be studied by the aid 
of the microscope. There is an interesting section in this 
work, not found in the previous editions, on the vital pro- 
perties of the blood, which we presume is written by the 
present editor, and also another section on the balance in the 
vital economy, in which an elaborate account is given of the 
debtor and creditor account of the body during reception of 
supplies and rejection of waste. There is also a good résumé 
of all that has been done on the glycogenic function of the 
liver, and the section on the urine is brought up to the 
present state of our knowledge. 
Much has been done in the structure and fanction of the 
nerves. Amidst the large amount of contradictory results 
and opinions, the editor has managed to give the principal 
facts in this difficult branch of inquiry. 
The chapters on muscular tissue, and on generation and 
development, have been considerably extended, and new 
observations recorded. 
The number of woodcuts have been increased from 156 to 
206, and several of the old ones replaced by new. The 
getting up of the work is worthy the famous house of 
Churchill. Works on physiology are sometimes supposed to 
* Colin, however, on examining the fluid of the thoracic duct, readily found 
iodide and ferrocyanide of potassium in dogs, sheep, and oxen, to which these 
salts had been administered eighteen minutes previously. (‘Bulletin de l’Aca- 
démie,’ xxvii, p. 948.) 
