February 3, 19 16] 



NATURE 



625 



break in artistic skill, of which we have at least 

 two instances : the decline in skill in stone-work 

 in the Solutrian period as compared with that of 

 La Madelaine, and the equally remarkable failure 

 in artistic powers of Neolithic as compared with 

 Palaeolithic man. In the first case, Mr. Parkyn- 

 suggests that the decline was due to the worker 

 finding other fields for his artistic skill in the use 

 of bone and horn instead of stone, and to the 

 ■A growth of the taste for engraving. In the latter 

 case it can only be suggested that it depends on 

 a difference of race and environment, the age of 

 polished stone marking the beginnings of settled 

 life, agriculture, and cattle-raising. 



Enough has been said to indicate the value of 

 this book, provided that the reader does not ex- 

 pect from it what it was not intended to supply. 

 The field is still open for a monograph on the art 

 of the Ages of Stone in which the evolution of 

 the crafts of these early workers and the artistic 

 spirit shown in fresco, sculpture, and the work- 

 ing of an intractable material like flint shall 

 receive adequate examination. 



THE ORGANISATION OF EMBRYOLOGICAL 

 RESEARCH IN AMERICA. 



WHEN British anatomists come to examine 

 "Contributions to Embryology," ^ which 

 have been issued by the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington as publications numbers 221, 222, 

 they will be less than human if they do not feel 

 a twinge of jealousy. Five-and-twenty years ago 

 anatomists in America were British in method and 

 in spirit ; they were easy-going, each man follow- 

 ing leisurely his own individual bent. Since that 

 time a remarkable change has taken place ; the 

 number of laboratories in which the structure and 

 ■development of the human body are taught and 

 investigated have increased tenfold ; the number 

 of investigators has grown in a still greater ratio; 

 in quantity and quality their anatomical proceed- 

 ings and journals have come to rival those of 

 any country in Europe. 



In effecting this transformation the chief credit 

 must be assigned to one man — Franklin P. Mall, 

 for twenty-three years professor of anatomy at the 

 Johns Hopkins University. He planted in Balti- 

 more the methods and aims which he acquired 

 when working in the laboratory of the late Prof. 

 His at Leipzig. By his personal influence and 

 example, by pupils and disciples, and by reason 

 of the inherent excellence of the Leipzig traditions, 

 he has succeeded in Germanising the majority of 

 the dissecting rooms and anatomical laboratories 

 throughout the length and breadth of North 

 America. 



The issue of "Contributions to Embryology" 

 marks a new phase in the career of Dr. Mall and 

 the beginning of another period in the history of 

 "human anatomy in North America. In 1913 Dr. 

 Mall issued "A Plea for an Institute of Human 

 Embryology. "2 



1 Carnegie Institution of Washineton Publication«. Nos. J2i, »22. 

 "Contributions to Embryology." Vol. i. No. i. Vol. ii., Nos. 2-6. Vol. 

 iii., Nos. 7-0. , , 



- Journal of the American Medical Association, 1913, vol. Ix., p. 1509. 



NO. 2414, VOL. 96] 



"At present," he wrote, "it seems impossible for the 

 investigator-teachers to make greater progress than is 

 here shown without better organisation, and it is for 

 this reason that I renew the plea of His for an Institute 

 of Human Embryology. Only in this way can we 

 hope to secure a complete etnbryologic and scientific 

 basis for human anatomy which, it is being recog- 

 nised, is in a chaotic state. . . . There should be an 

 Institute of Human Embryology just as there is one 

 for Human Palaeontology recently founded in Paris by 

 the Prince of Monaco." 



The conception of founding such an institute 

 in North America is Dr. Mall's, but the possibility 

 of its realisation was Mr. Carnegie's. At the close 

 of last year (December, 1914) the trustees of the 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington established 

 a Department of Embryology, appointed Dr. Mall 

 as Director, and gave him an "investigatory 

 staff," which includes some of the leading em- 

 bryologists of the present day, with all forms of 

 skilled assistants needed in laboratories of such a 

 kind. At present Dr. Mall and his staff are housed 

 in the cheap brick building which forms the 

 Anatomical Department of Johns Hopkins Univer- 

 sity. The new institution or department of em- 

 bryology Is already at work, and the manner in 

 which it is to fulfil its destiny may be inferred 

 from the high quality of vols. i. and ii. of "Con- 

 tributions to Embryology." 



In vol. i. Dr. Mall gives the results of minute 

 examination of 117 specimens where the human 

 ovum had been arrested in the Fallopian tube, and 

 started to develop there in place of passing on to 

 its normal site in the uterus. When the late Mr. 

 Lawson Tait, some thirty years ago, showed that 

 the lives of women who were the subjects of tubal 

 pregnancy could be saved by prompt operation, 

 the condition was supposed to be rare; we now 

 know that it is common, and there is an ever- 

 growing body of evidence which demonstrates 

 that it results from an inflammation of the tube, 

 often venereal in nature. The facts observed by 

 Dr. Mall support the theory of an inflammatory 

 causation. In above 90 per cent, of the cases he 

 found that the embryo was also diseased or ar- 

 rested in development. For anyone who would 

 continue a research on tubal pregnancy — or who 

 may wish to know the best that can be known 

 of the subject at present;— a study of Dr. Mall's 

 records and illustrations is absolutely essential. 



In the second volume there are five papers, all 

 of them forming definite and useful additions to 

 our knowledge of the human embryo. Dr. James 

 Crawford Watt describes two very young twin 

 embryos, at a stage of development which has not 

 been recorded before. Prof. Eliot Clarke gives 

 an embryological explanation of a very rare 

 anomaly — a subcutaneous vessel taking the place 

 of the thoracic duct. Dr. Charles R. Essick de- 

 scribes certain transitory cavities which occur in 

 the developing ganglia at the base of the brain. 

 The two remaining papers are devoted to the 

 growth of the human foetus and to the develop- 

 ment and nature of the corpus luteum of the 

 ovary. 



In vol. iii the same high standard is main- 



