74 



NATURE 



[A/ay 23, 1889 



objection might be met by slightly extending that clause so 

 as to include cookery, laundry work, &c. Another Haw is 

 the omission to provide expressly for Imperial grants other 

 than payments on results of individual examination. It is 

 true that the Bill leaves the mode in which such grants shall 

 be made to the discretion of the Science and Art Depart- 

 ment, but something more definite than this is required. 

 It would be a great mistake if payments for technical 

 instruction were made on results, like the present Science 

 and Art grants ; they ought rather to bear a certain pro- 

 portion to local contributions, and a clause to this effect 

 should, if possible, be embodied in the Bill. Lastly, why 

 should School Boards and local authorities be required 

 to confine any entrance examination which they may 

 institute, to reading, writing, and arithmetic ? 



In spite of these minor defects in matters of detail, 

 the Bill as a whole ought to meet with the hearty approval 

 of the public, and we trust no stone wi 1 be left unturned 

 to secure that it shall be passed into law this session. 

 Another year's delay would be most disastrous, as it would 

 have the effect of paralyzing local activity, especially in 

 those centres which have already prepared schemes and 

 collected funds for technical schools, but are waiting year 

 after year to see what form legislation on this subject will 

 take. 



A TEXT-BOOK OF HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY. 

 A Text-book of Human Physiology. By Dr. Austin 

 FHnt. Fourth Edition. (London : Lewis, 1888.) 



^''HE present edition of Dr. Flint's " Human Physio- 

 logy " is a capital manual of the subject. The book 

 has been re-written from the third edition, which was 

 published nine years ago. As might have been expected 

 from the author of the previous work, the style of the 

 text is always clear and eminently readable. Upon the 

 whole the selection of the matter is good, and the illustra- 

 tions are almost without exception excellent. Detailed 

 description of apparatus and of methods of experiment 

 has been excluded as unsuited to the character of the 

 book. In the same way digression into the laws of 

 physical and chemical science has been avoided as far 

 as possible, on the ground that such knowledge is already 

 within the possession of the student of physiology, or that 

 to obtain it he can turn with advantage to special treatises. 

 Amid much that is praiseworthy in the work, one may 

 single out some points for especial commendation. The 

 brief historical introductions to certain chapters are 

 of marked excellence, and notably the sketch relating 

 the progress in our knowledge concerning the functions 

 of the heart and blood-vessels. The discussions of 

 the terms hunger and thirst, and of the value of the 

 various constituents of the urine as indices of the general 

 metabolism of the body, are exceedingly full and satis- 

 factory. Very interestingly given, too, is the account of 

 the uses of water and inorganic chemical substances which 

 pass through the organism ; and the probability of the 

 formation of a considerable amount of water within the 

 organism during severe muscular exercise is related with 

 striking vigour and force of argument. As its title 

 implies, the volume is devoted particularly to the physio- 

 logy of man, and the portion dealing with the special 

 mechanisms for voice and speech is exhaustive. The 

 chapters upon the cranial nerves, upon sight, and upon 



hearing, are perhaps, upon the. whole, the best in the 

 entire volume. The illustrations to these chapters are 

 particularly deserving of praise. 



In a science developing with such rapidity as of late 

 years physiology has done, peculiar difficulties stand in 

 the way of furnishing a text-book that shall pretend to 

 some degree of co.npletencis, and shall at the same time 

 avoid statement of all that is not absolutely worthy of 

 credence. Dr. Flint has to a great degree succeeded in 

 accomplishing this difficult task. But he has done so 

 somewhat at the expense of matter that might, we think,. 

 have been introduced into his text-book with advantage. 

 One finds no dafinite mention in his work of rhythmic 

 contractility as a function of the fibres of the cardiac 

 muscle per se, apart from nervous connections they 

 possess. There is no adequate discussion in this 

 manual, consisting of nearly 900 pages, of the pheno- 

 menon of inhibition as an exhibition of temporary 

 diversion of cell-activity into channels of anabolism. 

 When treating of uric acid the writer is silent as to the 

 synthesis from urea and glycocoU, although that fact 

 throws a flood of light upon the origin of the acid in the 

 animal body. A long paragraph is devoted to the pineal 

 gland, and finally the remark is made that in structure 

 it resembles the ductless glands ; surely such a sugges- 

 tion is worse than worthless, in view of the discovery of 

 its relation to the dorsal median eye of Sphenodon. 



On the other hand, when writing of the superficial and 

 deep reflexes, no hint is given of any doubt as to the 

 truly reflex nature of the latter. The balance of evidence 

 is decidedly in favour of the patellar jerk being really of 

 the nature of a reflex, yet an unqualified statement on so 

 important a subject is scarcely fair to the student. 



In so excellent a chapter as that on sight, it is dis- 

 appointing to find hardly one word of mention of the 

 phenomena of colour-sensations. The Young- Helmholtz 

 theory is not alluded to, much less any rival hypothesis 

 such as that of Hering. One hears nothing of three 

 primary sensations of colour, or that colour-blindness i- 

 most frequently a defect for the rays of the longer wave- 

 lengths. In a physiological work treating especially of 

 man, this ought not to be the case. We are not so 

 poverty-stricken in our knowledge of the functions of the 

 semicircular canals as Dr. Flint would let his reader 

 imagine. No adequate description is given of the 

 symptoms which appear when they are separately 

 injured No adequate representation is made of the 

 views of the long series of more recent workers on the 

 subject. In the statement of the motor-paths by which 

 nervous impulses arrive at the urinary bladder, no refer- 

 ence is made to the sacral spinal nerves, although the 

 contraction brought about through sympathetic channels 

 is incomparably weaker than that effected along the 

 former route. One must add here, however, that the 

 diagram, from Kiiss, exhibiting the various forms and 

 positions assumed by the organ in question when dis- 

 tended in various degree, is remarkably useful an 

 well-chosen. 



Dr. Flint alludes to, rather than describes, the way in 

 which, by partial superposition and fusion of simple coj 

 tractions, the tetanic contraction of muscle is obtain* 

 He is far too brief upon the matter, especially as he gi\ 

 it no pictorial illustration in aid of his text. The stude 

 whose grains of knowledge on this head had been gleanl 



