Nov. 21, 1878] 



NATURE 



51 



their lectureships to students who had not distinguished 

 themselves in both parts. 



It is impossible to touch on all the points which sug- 

 gest themselves in connection with this question, but we 

 ' TV point out in conclusion that the exaaiination in 

 nbridge has to adapt itself to two classes of candidates, 

 : There is the class who may be called professed 

 . -hematicians, because they spend their lives in culti- 

 ing mathematical science and in teaching it to others, 

 . there is the class who abandon their mathematics as 

 n as their undergraduate coiu-se has terminated. Of 

 : former class we believe that their tastes and the ne- 

 iities of their position will alike carry them beyond 

 : subjects of the first examination. In the case of the 

 :nd class, which is a large one, it is undoubtedly a 

 = e thing to restrict their studies within the limits of the 

 ■er subjects. For under the present system, in their 

 emess to secure good places they attempt subjects 

 ;h are either beyond their powers or their oppor- 

 ::ies, and so fail to gain the advantages which a strict 

 .:hematical training is supposed to afford. 



''CRAM'' BOOKS 

 'es on Physiology, for the Use of Students Preparing 

 r Exatnination. By Henry Ashby, M.B. (London : 



Longmans, Green and Co., 1878.) 

 T^HIS book, being a fairly creditable and careful speci- 

 men of its kind, seems to offer a fitting opportunity 

 denouncing the whole class of "cram " books of which 

 .. is a member. It purports to be notes on physioIog>-, 

 compiled originally, while the author was a demonstrator 

 " the Liverpool School of Medicine, for the use of those 



ients of the school who were preparing for the primary 

 examination of the College of Surgeons ; and it is con- 

 fessedly based upon Fosters " Physiology " and the two 

 chief anatomical text-books used in England. It is a 

 ismall i8mo of about 230 pages, clearly printed in a large 

 type, and it contains a niunber of condensed and dog- 

 matic statements in all departments of physiology. It is, 

 we rejoice to be able to say, written perspicuously and 

 ■- -^mpiled with evident care. Most of what Mr. Ashby 



: read in Foster he has accurately digested and dog- 

 -.aatised. But though he has thus almost disarmed 

 criticism as to his particular book, the book still remains 

 mfected with the \'ices of its class ; it is a delusion and a 

 snare to the student ; and we heartily wish Mr. Ashbj^'s 

 talents had foimd a worthier object for their exercise. 

 "Notes" are imdoubtedly of the greatest value to a 



:lent — nay, they are indispensable, if he is to acquire 

 ^ -arge view of his subject ; but they are only valuable 

 when the student has compiled them himself from the 

 larger text-books, or, better still, from original memoirs, 

 or when he has seen them digested and set down, so to 

 speak, before his eyes by his teacher. Each of the sen- 

 tences in his book Mr. Ashby doubtless could and would 

 make the text of a lucid explanation in his lectures or 

 demonstrations. He would lay before his hearers the 

 different views of obser\-ers on difTerent physiological ques- 

 tions, as he had learnt them, and, balancing the evidence, 

 (he would abstract for them a trustworthy judgment in a 

 icareful and concise statement : and the student who 

 took down his notes, on re-reading them, would have the 

 whole discussion refreshed in his mind with more or less 



vividness — would, in fact, have almost all the benefit of 

 condensing the notes for himself. But when these concise 

 statements or formulae are put into the hands of students 

 w^ho have not been thus prepared for them, the case is 

 wholly difTerent. Aladdin has the lamp, indeed, but he 

 can conjure up no powerful genii with it. 



But if this were all we might be content to let books 

 like this sink to their o\\-n level; their inutility would 

 lead to their speedy death. But while the good student 

 would never for a moment think of reading notes that he 

 had not made himself, or if he did read those of another, 

 would quickly find out the cause of their uselessness to 

 any one but their author, the bad student is misled to 

 believe that 230 small pages of fair-sized type contain 

 the whole of the physiology that he needs ; he looks 

 through the hst of contents and finds set down there 

 almost every physiological fact and problem of which he 

 has ever heard,^and he naturally concludes that he has 

 only to equip himself with this little book in order to cope 

 with his examiner. 



Mr. Ashby' s book, admirable for the purposes of his 

 own students, is useless or worse than useless to the 

 students of any other teacher ; published to the world, it 

 is like a creature in an improper medium, and we are 

 constrained to wish that, with all similar books, it may 

 quickly meet the usual fate of creatures so circumstanced. 



After this we need not say much about the book itself. 

 On the whole it is well done. The histological sections 

 are decidedly the weakest. The " ossification of bone '' (p. 

 29), and the "development of tooth " (p. 107) might as well 

 have been omitted altogether, as put in so meagrely. The 

 extremely important histological researches of Heiden- 

 hain on the pancreas seem to be ignored on p. 16, where 

 "probabihty" only is allowed to the elaborating func- 

 tions of glandular epithelia. The pigment layer of the 

 eye on p. 17 is assigned to the choroid coat instead of to 

 the retina, and again on p. 194. No nucleus is given to 

 striated muscular fibres on p. 8r. On p. 179 Prof. 

 Ferrier's name is put down at the end of a paragraph as if 

 he were the prime authority for certain facts regarding the 

 corpora guadrigemina, which we rather owe to Flourensj 

 Longet, and Goltz. These errors are not of vital import- 

 ance, and some of them have probably been due to inad- 

 vertence. But there are two more mistakes which are of 

 greater weight, and show the danger of mere book-making. 

 On p. 34, where the properties of muscle are discussed, we 

 find that " On contraction ... O is absorbed and COj- 

 . . . given off." This is left imexplained here and in the 

 rest of the book. What Mr. Ashby doubtless meant 

 was that diuring contraction more arterial blood passes 

 into muscle, and more O is taken up than during rest, 

 while CO, is at the same time emitted ; but, in the above 

 unguarded way of statement, the fundamental fact of the 

 independence of the actual absorption of O and dis- 

 engagement of CO2 — a fact of the utmost moment in 

 our conceptions of muscular work — would seem to be 

 passed over. Again, on p. 168, under nervous conduc- 

 tivity, we have the curious statement that "the axis- 

 cylinder probably conducts the impression, the medullary 

 sheath acting as a sort of insulator to prevent the cur- 

 rents from becoming mixed and confused" — a physical 

 explanation which no physiologist would now for a 

 moment think of offering. 



