1874.] Notices of Books. 257 
Student’s Class Book of Animal Physiology. By T. Austin 
: Buttock, LL.D. London: Relfe Brothers. 
Tue author tells us in his preface that ‘‘ This book, whatever 
be its fate, has come of a careful and earnest endeavour to meet 
the requirements of higher and middle class schools, and of all 
teachers who may desire to prepare pupils for Government or 
other science examinations.” 
We quite believe in the care and earnestness of the manufacture 
of this book. Every page displays the result of careful and 
earnest cramming on the part of the author himself, and an 
equally careful and earnest effort to transfer the cram to his 
readers or pupils. The machinery by which he seeks to effect 
this is a series of questions followed by mechanical answers 
suitable for the requirements of those michievous people who. 
call themselves teachers, and whose teaching consists in putting 
certain books in the hands of their unfortunate pupils, marking 
so many lines to be “ got off by heart,” and then listening to 
their misguided victims while they ‘‘ say their lessons.” 
The following is a sample :— 
Q. What are the names and positions of the interior bodies 
of the brain?” 
“©A, From the base upwards we have (1.) The Posterior and 
Anterior Pyramids, and quite close -by the side of the latter are 
(2.) The Olivary Bodies, with the Restiform Bodies on their outer 
sides; (3.) The Pons Varoli, a mass of neurine an inch wide, with 
its fibres running like a bridge across the Medulla Ob.; (4.) The 
Corpus Dentatum, a mass of grey neurine with a tooth-shaped 
edge, in the anterior of that part of the cerebellum at the sides 
of the Pons; (5.) The Crura Cerebri (legs of the brain) rounded 
masses of nerve fibres, which, from the Medulla Ob., emerge at 
the upper end of the Pons; (6.) The Corpora Albicantia, two 
pear-shaped silvery bodies at the base of the brain, but connected 
with the cerebrum; (7.) The Corpus Callosum which unites the 
two hemispheres of the cerebrum; (8.) The Pituitary Bodies, 
between the Olfactory Nerves; and (9,) The Tuber Cinereum 
just under the latter (Fig. 25, V. between V and W; S.E.P.M.; 
Corpus Callosum between I. and G.; I. K). 
Fig. 25, to which these utterly unintelligible references are 
made, is a representation of the exterior of the base of the brain. 
The next question is— 
«Q. What are the other bodies in the interior of the brain.” 
This is answered in like manner by simply enumerating the 
Thalami, Corpora Striata, Corpora Quadrigemina, and the 
Commissures in the same parrot-like manner, and again referring 
to Fig. 25, in which none of these ‘‘ Bodies”’ are shown. 
_ This is all the information afforded on this part of the subject. 
Anybody at all acquainted with the structure of the brain may 
imagine the state of mind of the unfortunate pupil who strives to 
obtain any ideas from such a string of merenames. What must 
