270 



NATURE 



[January 17, 1901 



brevity of the treatment is probably an advantage. A 

 short bibliography forms a useful appendix. 



As implied in the title, the author's object has been 

 to give a general outline of the fundamental theory, and 

 not to enter into detailed discussions of applications. 

 The book thus deals exclusively vi^ith the theoretical, as 

 distinct from the experimental, aspect of thermodynamics. 

 It may with advantage be studied in conjunction with 

 any treatise in which the theory of heat is studied from 

 the experimental side, and a clearer understanding of the 

 subject will be obtained than would have been the case 

 had Mr. Buckingham written a larger volume, containing 

 a mixture of theoretical and experimental investigations. 

 In a subject like thermodynamics, the fundamental 

 axioms cannot, as a rule, be verified directly by experi- 

 ment, and we are compelled to use what Dr. Stoney calls 

 the a posteriori method. The evidence in favour of the 

 axioms is mainly derived from comparing the conclusions 

 to which they lead with the results of observation. It is 

 important in the theoretical investigation that no assump- 

 tion should be made which is not expressly stated, and 

 Mr. Buckingham appears at least to have exercised con- 

 siderably more vigilance in this respect than any previous 

 writer. We should like to see an outline of the theory 

 of electromagnetism treated on parallel lines. Mr. 

 Buckingham's treatise will be an indispensable addition 

 to the library of every physicist or physical chemist, as 

 >yell as of every applied mathematician who studies 

 thermodynamics, and the author has done much to place 

 the introductory treatment of the subject on a sound and 

 rational basis. 



AN AUIHORITATIVE TEXT-BOOK OF 

 PHYSIOLOGY. 

 J^ext-book of Physiology. Edited by E. A. Schafer. Vol. ii. 

 Pp. xxiv. + 1365. (Edinburgh and London : Young 

 J. Pentland, 1900.) 



THIS volume consists of 1258 pages of text, 97 pages 

 of indices (subjects and authors), and is illustrated 

 by 449 woodcuts. There is no preface. The following 

 epitome shows the subjects dealt with, their respective 

 authors, and, in brackets, the length of each article : — 

 " Mechanism of the Circulation of the Blood," by L. Hill 

 (1-168) ; " Contraction of Cardiac Muscle," by W. H. 

 Gaskeil (169-227); "Animal Mechanics" (228-273), 

 "Sense of Taste" (1237-1245), "Smell" (1246-1258), 

 J. B. Haycraft ; "Muscular and Nervous Mechanism" 

 of "Respiratory Movements" (274-312), of the "Di- 

 gestive" (313-337), " Urinary" (338-346) and " Generative 

 Tracts" (347-351), E. H. Starling ; " Properties of Striped 

 Muscle" (352-450), J. Burdon Sanderson; "Nerve" 

 (451-560), "Electrical Organs "(561-591), Francis Gotch ; 

 "Nerve Cell" (592-615), "Cerebral Cortex" (697-782), 

 E. A. Schafer; "Sympathetic Nervous System" (616- 

 696), J. N. Langley; "Spinal Cord" (783-883) and 

 "Parts of Brain below Cerebral Cortex" (884-919), 

 "Cutaneous Sensations" (920-1001) and "Muscular 

 Sense" (1002-1025), C. S. Sherrington ; "Vision " (1026- 

 1148), W. H. R. Rivers; "Ear" (1149-1205), "Vocal 

 Sounds" (1206- 1 236), J. G. McKendrick and Albert A. 

 Gray. 



Those familiar with the modern development and ad- 

 vances recently made by British physiologists will see 

 NO. 1629, VOL. 63J 



at once that the selection of authors is a guarantee of the 

 excellence and accuracy of the subject-matter of the 

 several essays ; for they may be regarded as such, each 

 essay containing the results of the observations to which 

 the author has directed his particular attention. 



It appears to us that Hill's article on the circulation is 

 an excellent resume of the subject, and the author 

 acknowledges that he is greatly indebted to the perhaps 

 not sufficiently well-known " Lehrbuch der Physiologie 

 des Kreislaufes," by R. Tigerstedt (1893), who has recently 

 become professor of physiology in Helsingfors. There 

 has been incorporated all those recently discovered facts 

 bearing on the action and distribution of vaso-motor 

 nerves, and influence of gravity on the circulations, with 

 which readers of the Journal of Physiology are familiar. 



Gaskell's paper is a philosophic discussion of the many 

 observations that have been made on the action of cardiac 

 muscle. It is done with a master hand, and by one 

 who has materially advanced our knowledge of the sub- 

 ject. Gaskeil explains the beat of the heart, the sequence 

 of its contractions, &c., without bringing in ganglion cells 

 at all ; and he sees no more reason to assign special 

 functions to these cells than to any other of the peripheral 

 efferent nerve cells ; and we think that he makes good 

 his case. 



Starling's articles give a clear and precise account ctf 

 the subjects with which they deal, but we confess that we 

 think a short chapter on the comparative physiology of 

 some of the subjects would have been most valuable. 

 In discussing the influence of the higher parts of the 

 brain on the respiratory centre, we failed to find noted 

 the researches of Marckwald on the effect of plugging 

 the blood-vessels of certain cerebral areas by injecting 

 coloured fluid paraffin wax. These results point to the 

 importance of the posterior quadrigemina and the nuclei 

 of the sensory part of the fifth cranial nerve as important 

 factors in the discharge of rhythmical respiratory impulses 

 {Zeit. far Biol., vol. xxvi.). The earlier observations 

 of Marckwald are given. We are glad to see a full ex- 

 position of the work of Kronecker, Meltzer and others 

 on swallowing of liquids. 



The mechanical, thermal and chemical properties of 

 striped muscle are exhaustively treated by Burdon San- 

 derson, as was to be expected from one who has devoted 

 so much time to the study of the time relations of muscle 

 in action, and who, by the introduction of new methods, 

 has added materially to the apparatus by which time- 

 problems in other tissues may be solved. The same may 

 be said of the admirable article on " Nerve " by Gotch, 

 while his paper on " Electrical Organs " groups up suc- 

 cinctly the chief facts and theories regarding these wonder- 

 ful organs. As to the nature and activity of these organs, 

 Gotch is led to the view that, as the only excitable 

 structures there present are the, nerves and their fine 

 terminations, the organ change is closely related to the 

 production of molecular disturbances in its contained 

 nerves. In any case, he regards the essential primary 

 disturbance constituting the organ shock as nervous. 



In the editor's article on the " Nerve Cell " we have, as 

 a basis, a rhumi of the more recent advances in the 

 minute structure of these organs. The modern " theory of 

 isolated units," often spoken of as the " neurone theory," 

 he regards as by no means conclusively proved. In any 



