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 NEW BOOKS, WITH SHORT NOTICES. 



An Introduction to the Study of Practical Histology, for Begin- 

 ners in Microscopy. By James Tyson, M.D., Lecturer on Micro- 

 scopy in the University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Philadelphia : 

 Lippincott and Co., 1873. — The author of this little work has made 

 a slight mistake in giving it a title. Assuredly anyone who had 

 not seen the volume would imagine that it dealt with questions of 

 microscopy generally, whereas it is limited to the subject of human 

 histology. However, in this branch we may say that Dr. Tyson has 

 done well in giving a brief account, and one intended only for students 

 who are beginning their work, of the methods now most used in the 

 preparation of the various tissues. It is just the book which the 

 general medical student requires, and which will in a very short time 

 make him familiar with the mode of preparing for examination, and 

 then observing such tissues as skin, fat, muscle, tendon, bone, blood, 

 nerves, &c. &c. With reference to the last-named tissue, which is one 

 of the most difficult for a student to prepare. Dr. Tyson gives the 

 following as Dr. Klein's mode of demonstrating the fibrillar structure 

 of the axis cylinder. " A piece of fresh nerve is put in common alcohol 

 for a few minutes, and then stained with carmine. It must then be 

 put into absolute alcohol for twenty to thirty minutes, after previously 

 tearing it out somewhat. It is allowed to remain twelve hours or 

 more in oil of turpentine, and then covered in damar varnish, when it 

 will be found that all the nerve fibres are more or less completely 

 dej)rived of their medullary sheaths. On examination the axis cylinder 

 appears in general to consist of a granulous substance, but here and 

 there distinct longitudinal streakings can be recognized." The author 

 of this work studied for some time under Dr. Klein, at the British 

 Institution of London, and Dr. Strieker of Vienna, so that he thereby 

 thoroughly qualified himself for the task which he has so well dis- 

 charged in the little essay he has published. 



PPtOGEESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 



Structure of the Liver. — M. Ch. Legros has a very able paper, 

 illustrated by a capital plate, in the last number (April) of Eobins' 

 ' Journal de 1' Anatomic.' He enters at some length upon the different 

 opinions that have been expressed on the subject by British and 

 foreign observers, and then he gives his own remarks. He shows, it 

 seems to us conclusively, if his two drawings can be depended on, that 

 the liver ducts neither expand to include the hepatic cells, nor that the 

 tubes end abruptly. In his opinion — his plates which represent the 

 structure of the liver in a dog bear him out — hepatic ducts enter each 

 lobule and form an immense number of anastomoses in it. But these 



