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A Topoqmi)liical Atlas of the Spinal Cord. By Alexander Bruce, 

 M.i). Williams & Norgate. London and Edinburgh, 1901. 



Nine years ago we reviewed in t]m Journal (vol. xxvii. p. 286) an 

 important treatise on the nerve tracts in the Mid and Hind Brain and 

 the Cranial nerves arising therefrom. In this work Dr Bruce de- 

 scribed and illustrated the structure of these divisions of the Brain. In 

 the quarto volume now before us Dr Bruce has reproduced, in thirty- 

 two plates, a series of illustrations of the grey and white matter of 

 the .Spinal Cord, of the distribution of the motor nerve cells, and of 

 such features of structure as may serve to identify any segment 

 of the cord in which the form of the anterior cornu is not sufficiently 

 distinctive. To carry out this object, a perfectly healthy spinal cord 

 had been selected and divided into its various segments, each of which 

 in its turn had been cut into serial microscopic sections of uniform 

 thickness, which Avere stained and prepared, so that in some the shape 

 of the grey matter, and in others the arrangement and number of the 

 motor nerve cells, could be determined. The investigation was, there- 

 fore, one of much labour, and the thirty-two plates give, for the first 

 time, a systematic and continuous view of ihe grey matter and motor 

 cells in the cord from the segment of origin of the first cervical nerve 

 to the coccygeal segment. 



As an introduction to the plates, Dr Bruce states that the cord 

 selected was one of a series of five that had been completely examined. 

 The fixing reagent was Weigert's chrome-ahmi-copper solution, the 

 stain for "the myelin sheath was Ford-Robertson's modification of 

 Heller's method, whilst for the nerve cells, toluidin and polychrome 

 blue were employed. 



The plates are highly artistic reproductions of the characters 

 of the sections. Photographs were taken by ^Mr Richard j\Iuir, of 

 the Pathological Laboratory of the University of Edinburgh, and 

 were magnified ten times to show in transverse section the arrange- 

 ment of the grey and white matter, and twenty times to show the dis- 

 position of the motor nerve cells. These photographs have been 

 reproduced in photogravures by Messrs J. & T. Annan & Sons, 



Glasgow. 



One can scarcely conceive it possible to have more beautiful repre- 

 sentations of the relative disposition of the grey and Avhite matter 



