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 NEW BOOKS, WITH SHOKT NOTICES. 



Tlie Anatomy of the Lymjiliatic System. By E. Klein, M.D., 

 Assistant Professor at the Laboratory of tlie Brown Institution, 

 London. I. The Serous Membranes. London : Smith, Elder, and Co., 

 1873. — Some of the results of the observations described in this 

 memoir were published in 1872, in the January numbers of the ' Cen- 

 tralblatt fiir die Medicinischen Wissenschaften,' Dr. Klein has since 

 that time carried his observations farther, and is of opinion that the 

 anatomy of the serous membranes, so far at least as their lymphatic 

 system is concerned, may be regarded as complete. The present 

 work deals with the minute structui-e of the omentum, the centrum 

 tendineum of the diajihragm, and the mediastinal pleura, both in their 

 normal and pathological conditions. 



It is almost impossible to criticize a book of this nature. The 

 Teutonic carefulness, which insists on a knowledge of all contemporary 

 w^ork on a given subject, precludes almost any farther inquiry into 

 facts and arguments adduced on one side or the other, where the only 

 possible proof is a repetition of the writer's work and experiments. 

 And it is only the careful histologist who can verify or pull to pieces 

 such work as Dr. Klein's. Mere bibliographical research, with the 

 addition of one or more presumably new facts, not necessarily sup- 

 porting, or even antagonistic to, some stated text, is certainly too 

 common a characteristic of authors in German " Archive " and " Zeit- 

 schriften." But no such fault is visible here. The facts observed are 

 stated plainly and severely ; the opinions of others put forward with 

 fairness, whether they agree or differ with those of the writer ; the 

 conclusions of the observer hinaseK offered modestly, though with no 

 lack of firmness. 



In his first chapter he points out that on the serous membranes 

 in certain regions there is normally to be seen a germinating endo- 

 thelium. For instance, the fenestrated portion of the omentum in 

 various animals shows numbers of cells which are raised from the 

 general surface by means of a stalk, and which possess in their peri- 

 pheral spherical portion two nuclei or a nucleus in a state of division ; 

 and besides the appearance of constriction, and division of these poly- 

 hedral or club-shaped endothelial cells, there are always numbers of 

 smaller spherical lymphoid elements which are detached from the 

 surface, that is to say, which have become perfectly separated. The 

 same character is possessed by the endothelium of the surface of 

 certain nodular or cord-like structures, which are either isolated or 

 in connection with the chief trabeculpe of the fenestrated part of 

 the omentum, in which larger blood-vessels or fat are contained. In the 

 second chapter, in which he discusses the cellular elements of the 

 ground-substance (matrix, basis-substance), he shows that the knots 

 and cords are not exactly to be regarded as pre-existing adenoid 

 tissue, nor as collections of lymph-corpuscles, but that they are 

 developed for the most part out of the ordinary branched cells of the 



